preachykeen

In [An Unknown] God We Trust – A look at Acts 17:16-34

2010-06-28T15:54:00.000-05:00

On March 11th, a federal appeals court ruled that the inclusion of the phrase “one nation under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance does not violate the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution. At first glance, this appears to be a victory for Christians in America. However, when the ruling is read in its entirety, it should actually serve as a wakeup call.
The court’s decision was made based on the interpretation that including the phrase “under God” did not promote any specific religion or deity, but merely emphasized the idea that humans have inalienable rights. In this and similar cases, such as including the phrase, “In God We Trust” on our currency, the courts have argued that it is not promoting any particular religion because it can refer to any ‘god’, not necessarily the Christian one. The argument reminds us of the ancient Greeks who worshiped a deity they called Agnostos Theos, that is: the unknown god. In Acts 17, Paul proclaims to the believers in “the unknown God”: “Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth” (Acts 17:22-23).
As Christians, we do not worship a God who is merely a concept, precept, or abstract idea. We worship the Lord of Heaven and Earth who became incarnate as Jesus Christ. Over the past century, in our zeal to avoid offending anyone with our specific beliefs, we have pedaled a generic god instead of proclaiming the good news of the one true God. Ironically, in our attempts protect God, (as if he needed anything from us), we have diminished the power of our testimony to mere platitudes, moral laws and fuzzy images. As a result, Christianity may win the battle of being respectable in our culture, but lose the war of saving souls for Jesus Christ. If we continue down this path, Christianity will be irrelevant for anything except political pageantry.
The true battle that needs to be fought has nothing to do with meditation times in school, inscriptions on coins, pledges, or any other mandate of Congress. The true battle is how we witness to our specific faith in God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is not as important that teachers lead prayers in school as it is that we teach kids to pray by our example. It doesn’t matter as much what is written on our coins as much as how we use our money in ways that honor God. It is not the words that we use in our pledges as much as the actions that we live out as disciples of Jesus Christ that will snatch souls from the devil. When we move from talking about ‘god’ to sharing the good news of Christ’s resurrection from the dead, some will sneer. But others will say, “We want to hear you again on this subject” (Acts 17:32). The battle will be won in the hearts of individuals, not in the chambers of the courts.

Grace and Peace,
Rev. Karl Sokol

Gloria a Dios, Su Reino Está Aquí: The Prophetic Voice of the Hispanic Experience of the United Methodist Church in The United States

2010-01-26T23:33:00.002-06:00

“You can try and teach us what us what you think the scripture says, and we will listen. We can teach you how to live the scripture. Will you listen?”1

Making up just a small percentage of The United Methodist Church (00.4 %), the Hispanic community of believers offers significant gifts and challenges to the denomination.2 There are about 17 Latino churches in the Northern Illinois conference that have Latino pastors and a Latino majority in the pew. They are traditionally small. Five Latino families can make up a congregation. Yet, on the one hand, they possess rich cultural and religious traditions that can inform the ways in which we do church. On the other, the systematic discrimination that is committed against Spanish-speaking immigrants and their descendants in the Unites States gives them a privileged vantage point from which to see the Kingdom of God.3 Following the leads that the Hispanic community demonstrates in dealing with social justice issues, we can better learn how to be church. Therefore, it is essential that the greater church look at ways to ensure the health of the Hispanic United Methodist community, as well as open itself to the gifts of transformation that it offers.

The religious tradition of the Hispanic community is composed of two strands. The first is Roman Catholicism, which is the most predominant faith of people in Mexico and South America, as well as amongst Latin Americans living in the States. The Hispanic flavor of Catholicism tends to be focused on ritual observances, mystery, the Saints, and Mary. As a result, members at Humboldt Park United Methodist Church, El Divino Redentor United Methodist Church and Adalberto United Methodist Church all cited a co-involvement with local Catholic Churches. Walter L. Coleman, Senior pastor at Adalberto commented, “Sometimes you come in here and you'll see the place is filled up out to the streets. This has usually been when we're doing something around the Virgin Mother. And this summer we haven't really had Sunday service because we've been spreading out throughout all the Catholic churches doing various different things with them.”4

Just as the Wesleys did not particularly want to stray too far from the Anglican Church, but rather be a reform movement within it, many Hispanic United Methodists have an elective affinity with the Catholic Church. Coleman notes, “What we have seen is in one sense spiritual discipline, intentional groups and such things combined with the very concept of sanctification and justification and social principles [which is] an overlay that works well on the Catholic Church. So, the mission and our reach are done in terms of Catholic Churches.”5 For all of its similarities to American Catholicism, though, the Latino American Methodist Church is a Mexican Catholic culture. According to Colman, “We see a lot of Mexicans and Puerto Ricans who have left the Catholic Church because the traditions are foreign to them compared to what they were like in their own country. The Catholic experience in the United States is as different to the Catholic experience in Mexico as it is from United Methodism.”6

Yet, by nature of their general economic status, there is also a similarity between Hispanic United Methodist’s and many of Wesley's initial followers, offering a renewal within United Methodism as well. “The Anglican Church is not very much different than the United Methodist Church today. You could imagine the church---a great big church with mostly middle-class folks and most of the seats are empty but they have an organ and stuff like that. Then some pastor wakes up next-door and sees 3000 guys from the local factories that want communion. And he must have been, like, you want me to get up and give communion to a bunch of dirty guys?”7 Needless to say, the similarity does not offer a favorable representation of United Methodism. Maria De La Cruz, a member of Adalberto, repeated this message. “So many pastors go from their middle class church to their middle class car and into their middle class house and they never see any day-to-day realities that the Latino community lives with. So the Latino community would challenge them to get out of their comfort zone to experience what it would be like to be one of their Latin American brothers and sisters.” She went on to observe, “With a grass root reality of what it is like to be with these people comes an experience of what it is like to be in the Kingdom of God. To realize that there are people in the Latino community who do not have anything to eat every day. What does that do to our Gospel of being brothers and sisters in Christ all across race boundaries.” 8 The economic status of our Hispanic brothers and sisters should shake us from our comfortable complacency and renew our social activist heritage, as well as reawaken our enthusiasm for worship. I attended three services, for a total of ten hours, with every minute of each one being engaging. Instead of sermons on how to be polite, I was inundated with images like “the horseman of the apocalypse is galloping up Division St. as we speak!” and given mandates on how to spend my money justly, and my Christian duty to participate in a large variety of causes from immigration law to protesting the wars.

When asked about the Hispanic United Methodist experience, two church members mentioned that for many Mexican-Americans who have been in this country their whole lives, they simply attend the mainstream United Methodist churches, bringing only cosmetic changes (such as the occasional Mexican song in service). These Latinos reportedly tend to be more liberal in their interpretation of the gospel and church doctrines. Pastor Coleman believes that there is a Methodist tradition from Latin America, which is more ‘evangelical’. Within this group, he cites a tension between those who are progressive, (e.g. Bishop Juan Vera Mendez of the Puerto Rico conference “which is both spiritual and socially active.)”9 And the more rapidly growing ‘Pentecostal’ movement of churches supported by “United States corporations who have wanted missions down there” and who “tend to be what we call American Zionism.”10 Although the latter is (an unfortunate) part of our heritage, the United Methodist Church officially broke from the idea that this nation was somehow chosen by God. Nonetheless, the former group offers the greatest challenge to how the church views itself. As several million more people enter this country, many whom see the US as their oppressor, the United Methodist church will have to clarify its stance even more. One voice is coming from Emma Lozano who, at a consultation on immigration ministry held at Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary last year, charged the religious community to legalize undocumented workers and be consistent with the stand that we took in Bosnia, Liberia, Rwanda, and Kosovo, in our own back yard.11 Another witness is coming from Adalberto United Methodist Church, which has developed community services such as a Latino Parent Teachers Association in the Chicago area, a utility bill ministry, organized 100 congregations to speak out against the impending War in Iraq and, like many Latino United Methodist are active in immigration rights.12 13 14 According to deacon Eduardo Hernandez, churches like El Divino Redentor in Chicago provide the service of bridging the cultural rift that exists between natives of Latin America and their American born decedents. In 1998 Chicago, Iglesia Methodist Unida Betania administered a $19,000 grant to the Bethany/Adalberto Immigrant Defense Fund.15 In addition to the mission work that individual Latino congregations are doing, groups like Methodists Associated Representing the Cause of Hispanic Americans (MARCHA), which has had agendas as diverse as establishing churches to demanding an apology for the arrogance of 19th c. Methodist Missionaries to Latin America, are making important advances. MARCHA was also influential in promoting The Council of Bishops to recognize the “Sojourners in Our Midst” “who find themselves in a country whose language they do not speak, whose immigration policies declare them illegal.”16

On the other hand, the “Pentecostal” trend, according to Coleman, “thinks that God is working nearly exclusively through the United States. This is the history of the institutional church, but it is more blatant when it is exported to Latin America and back again.” This trend demonstrates the fragile nature of a dominant group helping to establish a minority in its midst.

This is in part why it is essential that the future of the Latino church is motivated and sustained by a new generation of preachers from its own community. Unfortunately, there are several obstacles that must be faced to accomplish this, not least of which is funding. Recognizing the difficulties faced by minorities that are in a traditionally low-income demographic (as well as other factors that only allow the privileged to attend school), the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry (GBHEM) offers an alternative tract for individuals “who are certified candidates for ordained ministry, who have successfully completed the Studies for License as a Local Pastor or one-third of their work for a master of divinity degree, who have been licensed by the bishop after approval by the district Committee and Board of Ordained Ministry, and are unable to attend an approved school of theology” which would allow them to become ordained as elders.17 GBHEM underwrites both the tuition and the transportation costs for about 150 students to attend Garrett-Evangelical, one of only three schools were this program is available in Spanish, each summer to go to this “Course of Study” (COS) program. This, and the fact that the Board of Trustees of Garrett-Evangelical established the Center for Hispanic Ministries in 1988 “In response to the urgent need for more ordained and diaconal leaders for churches in the Hispanic community” are encouraging signs that the seminary is part of a prophetic movement to enfranchise the Latino community within United Methodism.18 However, the success of the center in achieving its stated goal to bring “Hispanic culture and experience into the life of the seminary” is debatable. The unfortunate reality is that there has not been a single Latino students enrolled in one of the Masters programs at Garrett-Evangelical for at least two years. This is significant because, not only is the quality of the education arguably less extensive through the COS tract, it can take seven years for enrollees to become a local pastor.19 This puts the individual in a precarious situation, since they are not guaranteed a position, they cannot vote at conference, and are not guaranteed their pension. Furthermore, if they do lose their post in the church, they would not have an accredited degree that would be recognized outside of the church.

There is a certain level of commitment by the church to support future leaders within the Hispanic community. For example, The North Georgia conference is supporting A Leadership Development Program for Hispanic Students called LAOS — "Latinos on to serve": which includes full tuition (plus stipends) to the undergraduate program at Reinhardt College.20 Also, one member of Adalberto United Methodist Church believes that he will be accepted to Garrett-Evangelical next year on a full scholarship. However, Whether the Latino community will have adequate ‘native’ clergy leadership in the future is not limited to financial issues. Those families that are fortunate enough to be able to support their child through seminary face the challenge of maintaining a cultural link. As Minerva Carcaño notes, leaving home for college can also mean, “adopting new and different lifestyles. It even could mean losing the language.” Furthermore, “There is no cultural support system and they are cut off from their families and communities.” Over time, this disconnect may result in the student not returning to the community after they graduate.21

It is essential that we work out creative ways to overcome obstacles that face Hispanic United Methodists called to ministry. We must be able to “read the signs of the times and discern ways to enable diverse people…to experience the riches of tradition that are this denomination’s precious gifts.”22 As the demographics of this country change and the majority of its citizens come from Africa, the Middle East or Latin America, it will be increasingly tempting for the Anglo culture to attempt to colonize or annex a church just because we built the building and Latinos happen to be there. As Ruben Saenz reminds us, “We must be careful that our motivation for evangelizing the Hispanic community is not born out of a need to sustain the institution nor should it be done out of xenophobia…”.23 There is always the danger of making these churches “in the role of being objects of mission and not as being part of the national church.”24 Instead, we need to remind ourselves of Wesley's vision of renewal. The United Methodist Church has become an institution with privilege. Yet, God has proven himself in Christ and the cross with a very different model. By allowing the Hispanic United Methodist Church to inform our theology and way of doing church “from the underside,” we can be a more genuine witness to the Gospel. But as long the delegates to our annual conference meetings are 97 percent English-speaking and white, we are constantly at risk of falling. The problem before us in this next century is to seek the balance between co-opting, like we have in our missionary history, and segregating, like the white Methodists did to their African-American sisters and brothers. Nonetheless, “Would we not be more likely to find a happier and more Christian solution to these questions if we approached them not from the standpoint of problems but from the standpoint of opportunities?”25

May the church be a vehicle for Christ Jesus to do his Abba’s work through the Holy Spirit. Amen.

1. Betti Guevera, Asst Pastor of Iglesia Metodista Unida Adalberto. Personal interview. 22 Sep. 2002.

2. According to figures collected for the 1996 General Conference, Hispanic members comprise 42,797 out of a total membership of 8,654,699. http://www.umc.org/genconf/struct.html

3. Although there are significant numbers of economically ‘successful’ Hispanic immigrants, especially in Texas, nearly a third (27.9) lived in poverty (compared to 8.6 percent of non-Hispanic whites) in 1997. Improving the Collection and Use of Racial and Ethnic Data in HHS: Joint Report of the HHS Data Council Working Group on Racial and Ethnic Data AND The Data Work Group of the HHS Initiative to Eliminate Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health. December, 1999. page 2. http://aspe.os.dhhs.gov/datacncl/racerpt/

4. Walter L. Coleman. Pastor of Iglesia Metodista Unida Adalberto Personal interview. 23 Nov. 2002.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.

8. Maria De La Cruz. Personal interview in Spanish. Trans. by Teran Loepke. 22 Sep. 2002.

9. Coleman

10. Ibid.

11. Michael Wacht. “Hispanic Methodists tackle justice issues at assembly”. General Board of Global Ministries Archives. Nov 28, 2001. http://gbgm-umc.org/global_news/full_article.cfm?articleid=680

12. Personal e-mail: “Testigo En Contra De La Guerra”. 20 Oct. 2002.

13. “Bishops award 31 Children and Poverty grants” United Methodist News Service Feb. 27, 2002

14. Newsletter. Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. http://www.icirr.org/newsandaction/PressReleaseInterfaithimmigranteventforWTC.htm

15. http://umns.umc.org/98/mar/123.htm

16. Alice Lucy Cobb. A Tapestry of Service: 100 Plus Years Along the Way in Church and Community Ministry. 2nd ed. (J & J Printers; Nashville, 1999). 87.

17. Jim Noseworthy. Handbook for Ordination, Ch 11. (Division of Higher Education). 1996. http://www.gbhem.org/gbhem/chap11.htm

18. Osvaldo Vena. Informational pamphlet for Center for Hispanic Ministries.

19. This comparison between COS and MDiv in no way reflects on the capabilities of Rex Piercy and Melissa Guerin!

20. http://www.gbod.org/hispanic/articles.asp?act=reader&item_id=2993

21. “Observations from the African-American, Hispanic-American, and European American
Perspectives”. Brief notes from a panel discussion by Daphne Wiggins, Minerva Carcaño and
Richard Boyer. Doing Ministry on Campus with People of Color: Resources for Intervention in Higher Education. Hicks, Richard ed. Published by the Campus Ministry Section, Division of Higher Education, United Methodist Board of Higher Education, 1991.

22. Thomas E. Frank. Polity, Practice and the Mission of the United Methodist Church . (Abingdon; Nashville, 1997). Page 28.

23. Ruben Saenz Jr. “Evngelism within the Hispanic Community: A Complex Calling.” Circuit Rider Nov/Dec 2002.

24. Celsa Garrastegui. “Hispanic Women Want No Melting Pot.” The Methodist Experience in America vol II. Ed. Russell E. Richey et al. (Abingdon; Nashville, 2000). Page 648.

25. Methodism’s Racial Dilemna. James S. Thomas. (Abingdon: Nashville. 1992). Page. 80.

carl thomas gladstone

2007-03-13T15:26:00.000-05:00

I was outside, enjoying the ridiculously nice weather, when my old pal Carl Thomas Gladstone called. He mentioned about me being on his rather excellent podcast, and sure enough, I'm right there on the 'ol Christmas post working with him on a rather funky track based on the book of Habakkuk. I don't have this exact recording, so it was nice to hear it. I'm a little embarrassed about how I get my Jimmy Swaggart on toward the end there, but otherwise it is enjoyable prophetic music with a summery (if not Christmassy) edge.

Check it out under Storyteller #13 While your there, listen to the tons of superior CTG solo stuff.

Temptation

2007-03-01T01:40:00.000-06:00

Temptation properly defined is “settling for less”. Temptation is settling for less. That is the human condition. The second chapter of Genesis, with the Adam and Eve story, is a story about temptation, right. If you brought your swords with you, open to Genesis 2 with me. God created a paradise for these two ancestors of ours, but in the midst of this paradise was a tree.

In Chapter 2, vs. 3 we read that God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'

And then the serpent, commonly understood in our tradition to be Satan, comes up with a counter argument. A better idea than God's plan.

4 You will not surely die, the serpent said to the woman. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

Here's a tip for you to pass on to your children and grand-children: if you think that you know better than God, you don't. Sounds obvious but how often do we ignore it. How often do we 'settle for less' than the abundant life that God planned for us?

And then what does she do? In vs 6. we read,

“When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.”

Let's be honest, most of the published theology in the history of the church has been by men. So, it is no surprise that Eve has gotten most of the blame throughout the ages. Well, this is one of those times when we need to reach past the tradition and go straight to the Scriptures, Eve didn't strap Adam down and put a feeding tube in his mouth. Adam was a big boy. He could make his own decisions. Whenever you see this story portrayed, whether it be Bette Davis on the Bergan and McCarthy radio program where she invents “apple sauce”, or in Milton's Paradise Lost where she has psychic control over poor Adam, or in the thousands of Renaissance artists who were looking for a respectable excuse for painting naked people, or in the way my own Sunday School teacher taught the story, we always have a reluctant Adam saying, “I don't know about this.” And Eve finally seducing him. But, as we just read, the Scriptures say, “She gave some to her husband, and he ate it.”

For that matter, the serpent probably gets too much credit from the narrator of the story as being “more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made”. It's not like he came up with a particularly clever argument. He didn't go to much effort to prove his (or her) statements. Just said, “oh it's O.K., God doesn't want what's best for you.” And then Adam and Eve succumbed to this pathetic excuse for a temptation. They settled for less than what God intended. Way less!

The could have taken the Nancy Reagan route. When a group of students asked her how they could remain drug-free, she replied, "Just say No!" Now, even though, when that became extrapolated into a national policy of a “Drug War” it ended up causing more harm than good, the truth of the comment remained, "Just Say No". On the personal level, the Bible makes it clear that we can resist temptation and sin by just saying No! Adam and Eve could have just said no, I want life and I want it abundantly. Snakes do not have better ideas than God.

Let's stop thinking of resisting temptation as depriving us from something that we want, and instead recognize it as merely settling for less!

The Pastor's Library

2007-02-02T11:36:00.000-06:00

My project to catalog all of my theological, biblical and otherwise churchy books is finally underway. Simply browse through the titles on the right of this blog or click on the link to my librarything page and find what interests you. Then, track me down at church or on e-mail and I will gladly get the book to you.

http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=revkarl

Desert Wisdom

2006-12-15T00:22:00.000-06:00

Some old men
went to Abba Poemen and asked,

"If we see brothers sleeping during the common prayer, should we wake them?"

Abba Poemen answered,
"If I see my brother sleeping, I put his head on my knees
and let him rest."
Then one old man spoke up,
"And how do you explain yourself before God?"
Abba Poemen replied,
"I say to God: You have said, 'First take the beam out of your own eye and then you will be able to remove the splinter from the eye of your brother.' "

We are moving toward mission (but ain't there yet.)

2006-12-15T00:11:00.000-06:00

"MAINTENANCE OR MISSION?

by Pastor Dave
http://revcamp.blogspot.com/2006/11/church-that-doesnt-suck.html

1. In measuring the effectiveness, the maintenance congregation asks, "How many pastoral visits are being made?” The mission congregation asks, "How many disciples are being made?"

2. When contemplating some form of change, the maintenance congregation says, "If this proves upsetting to any of our members, we won't do it." The mission congregation says, "If this will help us reach someone on the outside, we will take the risk and do it."

3. When thinking about change, the majority of members in a maintenance congregation ask, "How will this affect me?" The majority of members in the mission congregation ask, "Will this increase our ability to reach those outside?"

4. When thinking of its vision for ministry, the maintenance congregation says, "We have to be faithful to our past." The mission congregation says, "We have to be faithful to our future."

5. The pastor in the maintenance congregation says to the newcomer, "I'd like to introduce you to some of our members." In the mission congregation the members say, "We'd like to introduce you to our pastor."

6. When confronted with a legitimate pastoral concern, the pastor in the maintenance congregation asks, "How can I meet this need?" The pastor in the mission congregation asks, "How can this need be met?"

7. The maintenance congregation seeks to avoid conflict at any cost (but rarely succeeds). The mission congregation understands that conflict is the price of progress, and is willing to pay the price. It understands that it cannot take everyone with it. This causes some grief, but it does not keep it from doing what needs to be done.

8. The leadership style in the maintenance congregation is primarily managerial, where leaders try to keep everything in order and running smoothly. The leadership style in a mission congregation is primarily transformational, casting a vision of what can be, and marching off the map in order to bring the vision into reality.

9. The maintenance congregation is concerned with their congregation, its organizations and structure, its constitutions and committees. The mission congregation is concerned with the culture, with understanding how secular people think and what makes them tick. It tries to determine their needs and their points of accessibility to the Gospel.

10. When thinking about growth, the maintenance congregations asks, "How many Methodists live within a twenty-minute drive of this church?" The mission congregation asks, "How many unchurched people live within a twenty-minute drive of this church?"

11. The maintenance congregation looks at the community and asks, "How can we get these people to support our congregation?" The mission congregation asks, "How can the Church support these people?"

12. The maintenance congregation thinks about how to save their congregation. The mission congregation thinks about how to reach the world."

Is there a time for the flag to be in the church? Is there a time when the flag should not be in the church?

2006-12-13T22:50:00.000-06:00

Let us Pray - Nurturing God - we do not live by bread alone but by
every word that comes from your mouth. Make us hungry for this
heavenly food and pour it down upon us - that the words of my lips and
the meditations of our hearts may draw us closer to thee and lead us
to walk in the way of life. Amen

“Who is your neighbor?” That is the question from Wednesday's Bible Study that we have been contemplating this week. Jesus answers this question in the 10th chapter of Luke by telling a story of a Samaritan man who helps out an ambushed traveler that was all but ignored by his fellow Jewish countrymen. The short of it was that your neighbor is not only the person in the house next to yours, but includes the person who comes from a completely different culture and mindset than you do. While the Jewish law and custom was based on making the Jews a people separated apart from the rest of the world, Christ's commandments, as we read them today, were about shaping a new people without borders.

Paul, in Galatians 3:28 puts it like this, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”

So, with this in mind, all Saint's Sunday is always a rather peculiar day for the Church in America. It falls on the first Sunday after November 1st which is usually before the 1st Tuesday in November.

In other words, the one day that the church sets aside to celebrate citizenship in heaven usually falls two days before the one day that emphasizes one's citizenship in America, namely election day.

It is interesting that the 1st Chapter of the Book of Ruth is the Old Testament text this week. We didn't read it this morning because I don't see the point of reading only one chapter of a four chapter book. So, I am asking all of you to please take 10 minutes of this coming week and read Ruth. It is a beautiful story.

Naomi is a God fearing woman living in a foreign land who endures the deaths of her husband and two sons. She decides that she is going to move back home to Bethlehem, and one of her daughters-in-law, Ruth, decides to go with her to this foreign place. She is a Moabite, absolutely despised by the Jews. So, God in God's infinite sense of humor makes Ruth the grandmother of the greatest king of Israel, David. But it gets even more awkward, because, according to Matthew's genealogy in chapter 1, Ruth is the (24 greats) grandmother of Jesus, the one who came to fulfill the law. There is clearly a tension that runs throughout the Old and New Testaments between the chosen people and the stranger, between one's citizenship and identity with Israel or Rome or Greece or any other country and the Kingdom of God. Not necessarily a conflict, but definitely a tension.

A tension not unlike the one we find ourselves in today, when we celebrate the entrance into heaven and one of the freedoms that makes us distinctly American.

A friend of mine told me that it might be helpful to more fully explain the tradition of why we don't display the flag in church during the Christmas and Lent seasons and during baptisms. And in a day marked with such tension, it seems like an appropriate time to explain.

First, lets look at why, if “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus” we do display the flag the other 10 months of the year.

We believe in a God who committed the scandal of particularity. A God who chose to become a human at a specific time, in a specific place, as part of a specific culture. An embodied God. Namely, a God who chose to become part of the household of a working class, Jewish carpenter, in a remote outpost of the Roman Empire about 2000 years ago. That is a mind-boggling act in itself. God did this so that the great chasm between humanity and divinity could be bridged. As one of the ancient fathers, St Athanasius (one of my favorites, by the way) said, “God became man so that we might become God.” If that doesn't get you out of bed and onto your knees on a Sunday morning, nothing will.

In the history of the church, there have been many who have tried to gloss over this scandal of particularity. For example, St. Athanasius was speaking against the gnostics who believed that God didn't become human, but just sort of pretended. That Jesus didn't die on the cross, but that he disappeared from the body right before the moment of death, switching souls with poor Simon. All of these revisions of Salvation history were designed to allow the gnostics to believe that God was above the world and never really a part of it, so that they could hide from the world and not really be a part of it.

But the reality is, we are in the world. Each of us is embodied in a specific body, with specific characteristics, in a specific country, in a specific state, in a specific town, in a specific household. We may not be of the world but we are very much in it. When we enter the doors of a church, we bring in who we are in all of our particularity. In a town like Franklin Grove or Ashton, that means that we are more than likely Americans. Not just accidental Americans, but proud Americans. People who believe and are dedicated to the statement that,

“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish (and now uphold) this Constitution for the United States of America.”

As Christians in America, we are called to use our Christian lens, our Christ-like way of looking at the world, in order to uphold these notions of justice, tranquility, peace, welfare, and liberty. No, when we enter in through the doors of a sanctuary, we do not check our true selves in at the door. We come in order to praise God for the blessings that we experience out there. We come in for the fuel of God's Word struggled through in community. As the hymn, “Gather Us In” reminds us,

"Not in the dark of buildings confining; Not in some heaven light-years away, but here in this place the new light is shining. Now is the Kingdom, now is the day."

In other words, us being Christians means that we are Kingdom builders. The flag is here to remind us that right worship is not about us, but about what we can do in the world in the name of God. The flag reminds us of a call for what we learn here to be spread throughout every aspect of our lives out there. It affects how we treat our neighbors, how we raise our kids, and with elections coming around the corner, it should remind us how we are to vote. If you are a legislator who professes to be Christian, it should affect how legislate.

Ann and I went to go see Cardinal Francis George and others talk about Christianity in America and he said something that just really shocked me. Cardinal Francis George, one of the most prominent Catholics in the country said something along the lines that, in general, he didn't vote for Catholics in elected office, senators and whatnot. And his reason for this is shocking when you think about it. He said that ever since JFK, Catholics who aspire to elected office feel compelled to show the world that they are not really that Catholic. A person may have strong beliefs on something like the value of an unborn child's life, but then vote in favor of an abortion bill in order to show that they are not too Catholic. It's madness. Really.

We have the flag in the sanctuary so that we can be protected from such madness. That we can be reminded that this is not some ivory tower where what happens in here does not affect what happens out there, but that what happens in here shapes what happens out there. This nation needs God and it needs God now. We need God in our government, we need God in our schools, and we need God in our homes. There is nothing wrong with voting for someone because they are Christian and will promote Christian values.

Now, I'm not talking about someone who can talk the talk and then use his Christianity as a club with which to oppress a certain group of people because it is politically convenient. We have plenty of fat cat opportunistic so-called Christians in government and their hypocrisy just gives a bad name to the rest of us. But we need people who would honestly consider what Jesus would be calling them to do.

There is a corny catchphrase we hear a lot. 'You can't legislate morality.' What does that even mean? Porn should be easily accessible because “You can't legislate morality.” Teenagers should be able to have their brain development altered, literally, by Internet gambling and the compulsions and devastation it brings because, “You can't legislate morality.” Abortions should be cheap and easy because... anybody, “You can't legislate morality.” But, what is legislation? Legislation is the articulation of what you can and cannot do. Legislation is the articulation of what you can and cannot do. And what is morality? Morality is the articulation of what you can and cannot do. We have the flag in the church so that artificial separation of what goes on in here and what goes on out there might be destroyed. Don't be all godly in here and then walk out there like in here and out there are two different places. The flag reminds us of these responsibilities.

Now, why don't we have the flag in the church during Christmas, Lent and baptisms?

First and foremost, because the church needs times in the cycles of our lives to remember to be church. The church needs to be reminded of its foundations

There needs to be certain times when the church is called to her true identity. There has not been a single era in the history of Christianity when the church hasn't been behind evil things, very often the most evil things of a given time period. The French and English crusades of the 10th and 11th centuries, a senseless world war that killed a larger percent of the planet than any other. The Spanish Inquisition. Martin Luther's defense on the German government killing peasants. The early Calvinists in America burning innocent women who they claimed to be witches. The German Protestant church's silence before the Nazis.

Each and every one of these instances is an example of the church forgetting who she was and becoming a tool for a corrupted state. It is so easy for a state to be corrupted, but it should be harder than it is for the church to become a. tool of a corrupted state.

My family on my Dad's side is German. We Germans have a lot to be proud of. At the turn of the last century, we were shaping philosophy with Kant, Schopenhauer, Heidegger, Husserl and Nietzsche. We were changing the structure of music with Wagner and Hans Pfitsner, we changed architecture with Mies van der Rohe and Fritz Shumacker. We changed theology with Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth and Friedrich Schleiermacher. We had cool last names like Schleiermacher.

But the legacy of Germany in the first half of the 20th century are none of these brilliant people. And so the question that I found myself returning to throughout seminary was, how? How could a country that was a Christian majority end up doing what can arguably be called the most horrific acts against humanity in the history of the world? What happened? Well, Chancellor Hitler was democratically elected March 6, 1933, after running on a campaign of what he called “Positvie Christian values” against Communism, pornography and homosexuals and which used Christ's teachings as evidence for the elimination of the Jews.

And the church, for the most part, was silent. Dead silent. There were a few dissenters, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth for example, the former who was killed by the Nazis for, amongst other things, refusing to allow Swastikas in church. But for the most part, the church was silent. The church forgot how to be church.

Now please, don't leave here today telling everyone that the pastor said that America is going to vote for Hitler. That is not the point of my bringing up these instances in the history of the church. The point is to show how, over and over again during the past 2,000 years the church has forgotten her foundation and was co opted by the culture. In the time of Paul, it was people wanting to worship God, but hedge their bets with the Roman idols on the side. In the time of Athanasius, the church was getting mighty cozy with the Emperor Constantine and so on – always, with great regret.

But even if this wasn't the case. Even if the church was squeaky clean for the past 2000 years, it would still be appropriate to have times when we declare that God is God. That we focus like a laser beam on the one thing in this universe that matters. This [flag] is not some decoration with a cool asymmetrical design and a bold tri-color pattern that has rigid horizontal elements juxtaposed by jagged star-shaped ones. That is how the artist Jasper Johns looked at it. It is a powerful symbol of 200 years of struggle toward freedom and justice. It includes in its imagery the blood of death offered by those who were willing to give everything for it. It includes in its presence the steps forward, backward, and forward again that this country has taken in the quest of liberation from tyranny. The Judge that I worked for, the Chief Federal Judge of the 1st Circuit Court, William Young in his final words of the sentencing of Richard Reid, better known as the 'shoe bomber' said this,

“See that flag, Mr. Reid? That's the flag of the United States of America. That flag will fly there long after this case is forgotten. That flag still stands for freedom. You know it always will. Custody, Mr. Officer. Stand him down.”

I wasn't there, but I have seen him give plenty of sentences and I can just picture his face get red and then purple with passion as he leaned over the bench. And in private conversations with Judge Young, he told me how much he cared about the flag and how we would accept no substitutes like images on t-shirts, bumper stickers and coffee mugs. Because it is a powerful symbol that shouldn't be cheapened.

In short, the flag is a powerful symbol that should scream all of the good values of this country to you. But there is a higher power. Long after this country has disappeared, like all other cultures of the past have, God will still be God. To make an analogy to sound, the “Star Spangled Banner” may be a fine song, but it is not appropriate to sing it when the organist is playing “Amazing Grace”. When a person is being baptized, the country that they happened to be born in is not the focus. The water. The cross. The individual. These are the foci.

When Christ was born in Bethlehem, the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy of 'Peace on Earth and Good Will to All' was held in this little God-child. The focus is on God's gift to the world, not to a particular country at a particular time.

When Christ died on the cross, the ultimate gift to humanity was given. The complete redemption of God's people from slavery and bondage caused by sin was wiped away clean. This is worth reflecting upon without other distractions.

Despite whatever Hitler might have said, Jesus was a Jew. He affirmed his Jewish identity in every way. He went to the synagogues, he practiced the passover, he exalted the Jewish Scriptures. But nonetheless, he felt that there were times when he had to set that aside for a moment to show us the bigger picture.

A Jewish scribe, a teacher of the law, asks Jesus which of the commandments of God was first of all - most important of all. You know, was it how to eat right, how to pray right, how to worship right, how to celebrate the holidays right? What?

Jesus' answer is this...

"Hear O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love
the Lord Your God with all your heart, and with all your soul,
and with all your mind, and with all your strength - and - you
shall love your neighbor as yourself"

And again, who is your neighbor. The stranger, the non-Jew, the non-American. Jesus puts the most important thing- the foundation of all of the law and the prophets on this universally applicable statement, and the Scribe affirms it.

"You are right teacher.... this is much more important than all
whole burnt offerings and sacrifices"

In other words, this is more important than all of the symbols of faithfulness that our people have. And then Jesus recognizes the wisdom of the scribe and says to him, as he says to no other teacher of the law, to no other scribe that we have record of in this book:

"You are not far from the kingdom of God"

What interesting words these are...

“You are not far from the kingdom of God”

Not, you are a good Jew, but...

.“You are not far from the kingdom of God”

There are times when it is appropriate to take on the responsibilities and the privileges of being a citizen of a country. Jesus did so and so shall we. Jesus spent a large part of his time talking to his own people about things that were of particular interest to them- things that we from a different time and place read and say, “huh?” This Tuesday is one of those times where we take on such responsibilities. The fact that less than half of Americans can be bothered to take 15 minutes out of there day once every two years is despicable. It's is a wasteful disregard of what so many have died for and what the flag, at its best, represents. It is a dismissal of our embodied natures, the fact that God chose to bring us to this time and place and has given us the freedom to choose our destinies. So please vote.

But there are other times when our perspective changes from human things, to divine things. When we acknowledge that we are but sojourners in a strange land. That this world, this country, this town, this family is not our home, but merely a rest stop on the way to glory. As Christians, we affirm that this place is but a blink of an eye in eternity- not to be squandered for sure, but not to be given more than its due either. As soon as we enter too far in one camp or the other, we are committing heresy, either by denying that we are embodied creatures in a particular time and place or by effectively renouncing our citizenship in heaven. As Christians we recognize that we “Are not far from the kingdom of God.” As Christians, there are times when we must take the step that Ruth took, the one that took her away from her home country and into God's providence.

When we take communion this morning, we are affirming that we are a part of something bigger than geography, that we are a part of the Body of Christ. This is an affirmation that we remind ourselves during Christmas, Easter and baptisms. It really isn't a big deal, a statement against the country or anything like that. It is simply a paring down to the one important thing. God's grace offered freely through Jesus Christ. Amen?

Prosperity Gospel

2006-12-13T22:42:00.000-06:00

You will probably never hear me say this again, but I am glad that there are no first time visitors with us this morning. You see, the sign on the front of the church has said, “Come find the abundant life with us” for a couple of weeks now. And I believe that is what we are doing – seeking the abundant life. It comes from a promise in John 10:10, “Jesus came so that we might have life abundantly”.

For me, it was a great ‘a-ha’ moment in my faith journey when I came across Dorothy Day’s response to why she decided to give up everything to follow Christ and work in a soup kitchen for the homeless, having a non-stop routine of preparing meals and washing dishes until exhaustion. Day’s response, which you have heard me say before, was that she wanted life and she wanted it abundantly.

So, why am I glad that there are no first time visitors here this morning? Well, this week’s September 18^th issue of TIME Magazine has the cover story “Does God Want You to Be Rich?”. In it, they interview a series of Prosperity Preachers who point to John 10:10 and answer with a resounding yes. God shows God’s favor by blessing you with a nice car, a McMansion, perfect health and kids with straight teeth.

And I just picture some poor unsuspecting TIME Magazine subscriber in Franklin Grove thinking to herself, well, things are a little tight around here, and I just got a Sunday School flyer in the mail from that Methodist Church promising the tools for the abundant life, and I saw on their sign the invitation to come find the abundant life with us – so, maybe I’ll give them a try.

And then I picture this poor unsuspecting soul sitting in the pews, toward the front because all of the good seats in the back are taken, listening afresh to the gospel reading this morning, and hearing “Jesus spoke plainly” about how the Son of man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the Pharisees, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and rise again three days later. And why? So that we could watch our football games on high-definition television? No, Jesus then goes on to say, in an equally plainly, though even more painful way, that if any want to be his followers, let them take up their cross and follow him.

Well, maybe the cross is just a metaphor for a bad habit that you need to break. You know, maybe taking up your cross is that you sleep late, or that you don’t work quite hard enough, or that you harbor too many negative thoughts. But no, although it you might sleep in too late, you might be lazy, and the devil certainly strives on negative thoughts- these are not the cross. These are little stumbling blocks on the way to righteousness. They may need to be conquered with Jesus’ help, but they are not the cross.

Jesus was not a self-help guru. Peter got it right for a change when he said to Jesus, “You are the Messiah.” And then Peter got it wrong because Jesus began to tell him something that didn’t quite gel with his conception of what a Messiah ought to do. The Messiah that Peter was hoping for in Jesus was one who would move to the front of the line. Jesus clearly had favor with God, or how else would he be able to do all of the miracles that Peter and the other disciples witnessed him doing in the previous 7 chapters? And since Jesus had God’s favor, surely he would be a king. Surely he would have a harem like David and Saul. Surely he would become wealthy beyond his wildest dreams. Surely he would have great influence over the nations.

But the truth was something different altogether, wasn’t it. Jesus did certainly have God’s favor – being the second person in the trinity and all. Jesus certainly was king. King of kings to be more exact. But Jesus did not have a harem and he did not have wealth. See, Peter had his thoughts not on divine things, but on human things. And again, Jesus was rather plain about what he had to say about that. “Get behind me Satan!” So, after his shining moment, when Peter correctly recognized that Jesus was the Messiah, it turned out that he was too much a product of the sinful and adulterous generation of his time to understand what that meant.

But actually, I think we need to cut Peter some slack. This was all so new and sudden to him. But what is our excuse? We have had 2000 years to let Jesus’ words set in. We have seen the church do works of mercy that could only be done by the people of God. But we have also seen the church lead wars for the same reason all wars are led, in the pursuit of money, land and power. Over the last 2000 years humanities greatest minds and God’s revelations have given us insight into some of the greatest mysteries of this universe, but we still exploit our neighbor. In fact, last Wednesday when we read this, we wondered if today, after 2000 years of having the truth available to us, in this day, when according to the most recent poll 95% of Americans are Christian, if maybe we aren’t an even more sinful and adulterous generation.

Beth Moore, who the Christian Moms group that Jane and Ann are a part of are studying was asked what the greatest insight she discovered while researching a book she wrote on Daniel was.

She answered, “I was struck by the parallel between ancient Babylon and today. Babylon was a spectacular city, the center of commerce, not unlike our self-absorbed, consumer-oriented culture. Isaiah 47:8 talks about the daughter of Babylon saying, "I am, and there is none beside me." That's the mindset we're surrounded by today. [One of self-absorption].

In other words, in 2000 and some odd years since Jesus gave us the truth, we are still as selfish, self-absorbed and self-possessed as we ever were.

So, two questions remain. What does it mean to take up one’s cross and how in God’s name does this lead to the abundant life?

The answer to the first question is plain, and simple, and so ridiculously hard that we can’t accomplish it on our own without the grace of God.

Jesus said, “If any want to be my followers, let them deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to gain their life will lose it, but those who lose their life for my sake and the sake of the gospel, will save it.”

To take up one’s cross is nothing less than to die completely to oneself. You can’t be a little bit dead. Its like that bad old joke, of the farmer marrying off his daughters, one a little bit cross-eyed and one a little bit pregnant. There are just some things that are all or nothing and apparently being a follower of Jesus is one of those things. “If any of you want to be my followers”, Jesus says, “then let them deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me.”

Next Sunday, we will have two baptisms, Daniel Alexander Devon and Jasmine Marie Coy. In baptism, we die to this world and through the work of the Holy Spirit, are born anew into the new creation. We read in the Didache, a 1900 year old book that describes how the early church did things, that people being baptized in the early church would be held under water until they began to drown. We won’t do that next week. But it really gets across the idea that after baptism, you are not just wet, you have taken part in the mystery of the resurrection. Amen?

Jesus wants all of us. All that is not holy and perfect as the Father in heaven is perfect stays on the cross. All of that is removed and in its place, we put on perfection. We put on Christ. We become the Body of Christ. That is the abundant life. Anything else that this world has to offer is peanuts in comparison. What is a Porshe when you have achieved perfection. Stuff is just relevant to the times. Think about it. How many kingdoms and jewels would Napoleon have given up for a desktop computer from the 1980’s? Today’s hot new $1000 item is yesterday’s Betamax tapes. But the power of the Lord lasts forever.

In Hebrews 13:5, we read “Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have; for Jesus has said “I will never forsake you.”

Rick Warren, author of A Purpose Driven Life is quoted in that article I mentioned from TIME. He says,

"This idea that God wants everybody to be wealthy? There is a word for that: baloney. It's creating a false idol. You don't measure your self-worth by your net worth. I can show you millions of faithful followers of Christ who live in poverty. Why isn't everyone in the church a millionaire?"

Indeed, what would it profit you to gain the whole world, and lose your life.

The Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father and His angels. To be mistaken about that is to make the biggest mistake of all of eternity. But most of us already believe that. Most of us believe that we will die. There was a time between when I was 16 and 22 that the thought never occurred to me, but I have been cured of that. Most of us believe that there is something after death. What exactly that something looks like, we can only see through a glass darkly, because we ain’t been there yet- but the problem is not that we don’t believe that the time is coming so much as we are experienced at distracting ourselves from that time.

I have been privileged to be with several families after a loved one has died, and in every instance, there is someone, and usually most everyone, who is not only overcome with grief that their loved one has died, but is also overcome with the reality of their own death. Grief can be all that much harder when you’ve suppressed your own thoughts death. Now, healthy people do not spend each moment thinking about their mortality. That is a good thing. We got the business of life, of the abundant life for that matter, to tend to. But to completely separate your current reality from your ultimate reality – that can only be done with the help of Satan.

We have gotten so good at separating our present reality from our ultimate reality, that a nation that 95% of claims to be Christian is as sinful and adulterous as any other. We have gotten so good at separating our present reality from our ultimate reality that we allow ourselves to be comforted by any number of gadgets, gimmicks, false theologies, shysters, instead of allowing ourselves to be made uncomfortable by the word of God.

So, if you came this morning expecting prosperity theology, I am sorry. There is nothing but the Gospel here. I sometimes wish we could go down that path. It is a lot easier to tithe when you are under the assumption that you will get paid back with money plus interest. There are no such promises here. Here, tithing is a sacrificial act. A response to blessings already received instead of a down payment or a bribe for more to come.

But we do share the common faith that Jesus came to give us life, and life abundantly. Indeed, what would it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his life.

What is the abundant life?

That is not a question that can be answered in a sermon. I’m sorry. I know that some of you are probably thinking, we’re paying that kid a bunch of money and given his family a roof over their heads and he can’t answer the most important question that we have to ask. But I am sorry, that is the reality. You have to live the question. I can’t describe the abundant life, but I can tell you how to recognize it. The abundant life is not found at the end of a string of arguments because God is not found at the end of a string of arguments. The abundant life develops over time. It is a gift freely bestowed by The God who freely gave of The Son so that we could freely choose the abundant life. The answer is found in the living, in the working, in the celebrating, in the worshiping, in the singing, in the studying, in the sorrowing, in the struggling, and most of all in the dying of oneself, a little more each day, and the accepting of Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, a little more each day. The abundant life is less of me and more of Jesus. Jesus tells us, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. How easy or light depends, of course, upon how much we rely on Jesus to help us. This is the rich blessing that we are given as Christians. A Lord more precious than silver, more costly than gold, more beautiful than diamonds. Nothing that we could desire could compare to the Lord, so why do we waste our time on anything less than perfection? This is the confidence in the abundant life that answers the question of how the Dorothy Days of the world could give up everything to do hard, hard work in a kitchen day in and out and say that she had discovered life and discovered it abundantly. This is the confidence in the abundant life that could allow the Mother Theresas of the world work tirelessly for the forgotten in Calcutta. This is the confidence in the abundant life that brings the Dennys and Karens and Stans and Shirleys and Renes and all of you and me here week after week trying to get a better glimpse of God and leave a little of ourselves behind in the process.

Sisters and brothers, this is the good news this morning, let any who wish to follow Jesus deny themselves, take up their cross and follow him. Not that we have to. We don’t. Not that God is making us. God isn’t. But because we can. We are given the gift, not only of Christ’s death and resurrection, but our own as well. God loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten Son so that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Amen?

I hope that you will give me your attention just a bit longer so that I can share this poem by B.D. Prewer that really moved me this week.

Setting a cross on top of a church may be fine

but it is not discipleship.

Putting a cross on the altar is a worthy sign

but it is not discipleship.

Wearing one on a chain might seem enough

but it is not discipleship.

Getting it tattooed over one’s heart might be tough

but it is not discipleship.

Singing about the old rugged cross may feel okay

but it is not discipleship.

Preaching about the cross can point the way,

but it is not discipleship.

Weeping on Good Friday may seem devout,

but it is not discipleship.

Whipping your own back till blood flows out

is not discipleship.

Following the Christ, not counting the cost,

old bridges burning,

listening and learning,

setting your face, trusting sheer grace,

on the steep track,

not looking back,

loving and forgiving, dying while living:

that is discipleship.

 B. D.Prewer 2002

justice pathway

2006-07-11T12:49:00.000-05:00

[insert rants about drug companies abusing the law for their own greed here]

If this gets you mad and makes you want to get to involved in making health care available to all, than you are probably well planted on the justice pathway.

This Sunday, two days before we celebrate independence from Britain, we are celebrating this justice pathway. Those who are called and committed to the justice pathway are easy to pick out in a church. They are the ones who are always asking the questions about why we are wasting our time and money with this or that in the church when there is that or this need in the world. Often, Christians on the justice pathway are not in church for this very reason, which is a tragedy because those who aren’t plugged into a community are likely to become bitter and burnt out. But how can we better understand the justice pathway, to listen to whether the Holy Spirit is calling us down this road.

This weekend, we are celebrating the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the founding of this nation. And, despite all the lawyer jokes and whatnot, and any disparaging comments that I may make toward certain ones who work for [a certain pharmo co], – it is worth remembering that the majority of our founding fathers were lawyers or at least trained in law. And so, it is no surprise that this nation was founded on law from the very beginning. The Declaration of Independence itself reads as a legal brief. The constitution is nothing more or less than guidelines on how law in this country will work, namely how to keep balance between those who make the laws, those that interpret the laws and those that execute the laws separate. The Bill of Rights is a simple declaration saying these freedoms will be granted to our citizens by rule of law.

And so when the words justice and freedom are used in relation to people who are in this country, it is a justice that is promised by law and it is freedom secured by law. This is a good thing, because it is because of this foundation in law that this country has flourished. In addition to the ridiculous amount of natural resources that we have, it is the respect for our laws that separates us from struggling two-thirds world. As citizens in a free country, it is our responsibility to ensure that the rule of law trumps even our own personal preferences. That is, we need to defend another person’s freedom to do something that we would rather they not do. Even if it allows others to disrespect our beliefs, even if blind people remain blind because of them, even if we ourselves suffer unjustly under them as we read in Romans 12 and 13. We endure this because, without respect for the law, even for the bad laws, the whole system would collapse.

But when the words justice and freedom are used to describe the conditions of the Kingdom of God, law is not the guide. In the Kingdom of God, compassion trumps the law. Love trumps the law. Jesus knew the law. Jesus knew that according to the Levitical Law, being touched by an unclean woman or touching a corpse, would make him unclean and therefore, unfit for teaching. That these acts should be avoided at all costs by religious and holy man. But Jesus allowed the Hemorrhaging Woman to touch him and he picked up the corpse of a little girl before bringing her to life. Christ showed us that in the Kingdom of God, healing trumps the law.

It is true that, Jesus did not come to overthrow the law, but to fulfill it. Jesus worshiped in the synagogue, preached the Hebrew Scriptures, was circumcised according to the law, and did all the other rites of worship that the Hebrews did. But Jesus put the law in its proper perspective. The Sabbath serves man, the man does not serve the Sabbath is how he put it. In the Kingdom of God, the law is established so that all may receive justice. To receive justice by living in a Kingdom where nobody lacks because those that have bread share it with those that do not. A Kingdom where death and dying and mourning are no more and where war is no more because the commandments of Jesus toward reconciliation where followed. Where animosity fades away because everyone comes to trust in the wisdom of loving your enemies, even your deepest enemy that seeks to destroy you. But, living in Christ trumps living according to the letter of the law.

In the Kingdom of God, the law is established so that all may live in freedom. That we all might live in the freedom of true security that only comes from following the commandments laid down before us. But the law is the means, not the end. Compassion trumps all. Love trumps all. Justice trumps law.

When we finally allow compassion to be the primary flow of our thoughts and actions, we will be moved to doing our part to recognize the Kingdom of God on earth by seeking justice, loving kindness and walking humbly with your God.

Like all of the pathways, we are all called to partake in the justice pathway to some degree, but those shaped directly for the justice pathway serve the specific and important role of calling the church back to relevancy in the world. There’s a song that we sing around here that begins, there is peace and contentment in my Father’s house. But, then goes on to remind us that the fields need some tending. It is the burden of the woman or man on the justice pathway to shake us out of that and remind us to go work in the fields.

Within these two stories of healing that we read this morning, we see where the tension between appropriate liturgical law and life giving ministry gives. Namely, for Jesus, compassion always wins.

Jesus is passing through the crowds and he feels the touch of a woman who needed healing. She was hemorrhaging, and therefore unclean. She had plan to go unnoticed but he stops to seek her out. He seeks her out, not to rebuke her, as we may suppose, but to seek relationship with her. She reveals herself and the next thing Jesus says is ‘daughter.’ Not- hey woman, or any of the other words that we use to refer to outcasts when we are not in polite company. Jesus says daughter. Jesus is telling the crowd, and his disciples, and us if we are listening that this woman is a part of the family of God, regardless of what society may have told her. For 12 years, 12 long, horrible years, everyone had told her that she was permanently unclean. In the eyes of the men that added to God’s law, all women were unclean for at least part of the month, but for this woman, she bled for 12 years, so in a sense, she was less than human for 12 years, in their eyes. Being reminded constantly, she must have believed it in some sense. But Christ showed her that she had sacred worth because she was a daughter of God, not because of what the law said about her. Justice trumped law.

“Daughter,” Jesus says, “your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed of your disease.” If we are going to take seriously the idea that we are the Body of Christ - that we are the hands of Jesus - then we need to follow His example. We need to seek out the poor, the marginalized, the outcasts, the unclean, the ignored, the embarrassing. We need to offer healing. We need to help awaken the desperate to the beautiful reality that the Kingdom of God actually is around us. We need to welcome them into the family. Son, daughter of Christ, you are our brother, sister. We need to affirm one another’s faith. We need to send one another off in peace.

At the base of it, this is what the spiritual path of justice is pointing us toward. You don’t have to look hard or far for injustice in this world. From oppressive regimes, to the neighbor being bullied by her husband. From sexist religions to a nation that has so much abundance and yet cannot manage to feed and give adequate health care to all of its children. From a society that only allows desirables in to a church that does not allow today’s unclean to participate fully in the community – at least not without imperfect judgments of their walk with God. From here to anywhere, you will encounter injustice.

In the Kingdom of Man, here in America, we depend upon our laws to protect us from one another, but in the Kingdom of God, the law melts away to irrelevancy because compassion wins out. We might be tempted to think that this is impossible pie in the sky sentimentality, but if we truly believe what we proclaim, that our Lord is able to heal the sick and raise the dead as we do proclaim this morning, than what is a little justice among humanity. If gone can create everything out of nothing, surely God can handle the full redemption of earth.

Once we begin to recognize the Kingdom around us, we can see how we can bear witness to that same Kingdom by loving even when it is ridiculous to love. We can have faith that our witness of love will be contagious. At twelve years of age, Jarius’ daughter in this morning’s Good News would have been considered to be at a marriageable age. She would have been able to bear children. Likewise, for the woman who was healed. We are not given her age, but she could have conceivably been in her early twenties. At any rate, they both have a life giving capacity that they didn’t have before encountering Jesus. From their life comes more life.

When the temptation comes to us to be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of injustice in the world, we can depend upon this maxim that life brings life. If we simply offer help to one than they can offer help to another and so on until our simple act has awesome consequences. It is in these concrete actions of love, not in our recitations of the law, that transformation happens. To be a Christian is not to be one who believes this or that about Christ, but one who is willing to sacrifice in order for God’s Kingdom to come and God’s will be done. In 1 John 3:17-18, we read, "How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a person in need and yet refuses to help? Children, let us love not in word or speech, but in truth and action".

Listen to this observation that John Wesley made commenting on the last line of our text, “He commanded something should be given her to eat” He did this – “So that when either natural or spiritual life is restored, even by immediate miracle, all proper means are to be used in order to preserve it.” We are called to be the bearers of “all proper means”.

This fourth of July as we celebrate the Declaration of Independence, lets celebrate our interdependence in the Kingdom of God. Let us seek out injustice, and then extend ourselves to heal them, so that we might be for the world the Body of Christ redeemed by His blood.

[insert spirit led 'by all means' exhortations here]

Amen?

Let us close with a prayer for serving the poor, written by Mother Teresa of Calcutta. #446.

Y'all come

2006-01-14T01:50:00.000-06:00

There is a bluegrass song, popularized by Jim and Jesse in the 50's, and Jack Kelly, Jim Wolber and Banjo Bob in 2005 called Y'all Come. It would make a great theme song for the church. It starts off

When you live in the country everybody is your neighbor
On this one thing you can rely
They'll all come to see you and never ever leave you
Saying y'all come to see us by and by
Y'all come (y'all come) y'all come (y'all come) y'all come to see us when you can
Y'all come (y'all come) y'all come (y'all come) y'all come to see us now and then

When the Pharisees asked Jesus, who is our neighbor, he replied, by way of a story about a good Samaritan,

everybody is your neighbor
On this one thing you can rely

Later in his ministry here on earth, he was asked who can come to the banquet? We saw him eat with sinners and tax collectors by the dozen
And right after dinner they ain't looking any thinner
And here's what you could hear Him say
Y'all come (y'all come)...

Well, liturgically, in the life of the church, we are in the third verse.

Now grandma's a wishing they'd come out to the kitchen
And help her do the dishes right away
But they all start a leavin' grandma's a grievin' you can hear my grandma say
Y'all come (y'all come)...
Oh y'all come to see us now and then

Last Sunday, here at the church, we had a party, didn't we? Somebody say Amen. We had friends and relatives that we haven't seen ages come and join us for the awesome event- To come and see nothing - the empty tomb. People came from states around to join us the celebration of the resurrection of our Lord. Which is great. That is part of what we are here for. But, not surprisingly, only about half of us are here this week.

Last week, we were let in on the most important event in human history. We were able to share in the awe and majesty of the conquering of death... To participate in a story created before the beginning of time. A chance to sit back and marvel, and receive the awesome gift of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to get a foretaste of the feast of the heavenly banquet.

But this week, this week, the savior comes back- not to treat us to another service of celebration, another cause for a holiday to get dressed in our finest and eat and exchange gifts, but to tell us to get to work.

And now we're a wishing they'd come out to the kitchen
And help us do the dishes right away

Please turn with me to the 21st vs in the 20th chapter we read
21Jesus said to them again, 'Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.'

Jesus did not come back just to say hi. No, he come back to say, I have done my part to bring the Kingdom of God on earth, now it is your turn. The Father has sent me to redeem creation and I have done it. And just as he sent me, so I send you. We can imagine Jesus reminding us, hey, remember when Judas asked me a couple weeks ago 'Why was the perfume that Mary anointed me with not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?' and I told you that "8You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me." Well, now is the time to do unto the least of these. The time of feasting and relationship building, when I was in human form, is ended. Now is the time to feed my sheep. Now is the time to care for the poor that, in this fallen world, are always with us.

Again, vs. 22

22When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.'

This is a serious weight of responsibility. It is little wonder that our numbers have dwindled.

3If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.'

"Easter is not just coming to a wonderful, inspiring worship service, it is being sent back into the (hostile) world, empowered by the Holy Spirit, to bear witness to the identity of God as revealed in Jesus." http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/john20x19e2.htm

So is this kind of a drag? Kind of like when you go out to eat with ten people and the bill is hundred dollars and each person gives you ten bucks to cover their portion and you are left with paying the $7 tax and the $20 tip. Did we stick around too long at the banquet and get stuck with the bill? Maybe it isn't so great to be given the responsibility of saving the world, of being responsible for feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, comforting the sick and binding and loosing sins.

But let us look at the promise of the text once again. Look at vs. 19, vs 21, and vs. 26. "Peace be with you." Some translations say, "My peace, I give to you." What do we get for lingering and doing the work of Christ? Not just the great story of Easter, but nothing less than genuine peace. If you could use a little more peace in your life, please say "Amen". In this text and throughout Scripture, we are promised this peace. True peace. Lasting peace. Deep peace that is not simply the absence of war and strife, but is in itself something to behold. The kind of peace that can only come from the source, from the Prince of Peace Himself, Jesus Christ.

Is it unfair to think that to whom much is given, much will be expected? I don't think so. Besides, when we are truly in ministry, and it is truly inspired with the breath of the Holy Spirit and infused with Christ's peace, there is wonder in the work and great joy in the harvest.

That is why we are

a grievin' when they all start a leavin'

Not because we are bummed that we are left with all the work. But because we know what a gift the work and the peace that comes with it is. If we truly love our neighbors, we want to get them in on the action too. We want them to receive this peace. And so we sing out with whatever voice we have...

Y'all come (y'all come) y'all come (y'all come) y'all come to see us when you can
Y'all come (y'all come) y'all come (y'all come) y'all come to see us now and then

curricula vitae

2006-01-04T22:20:00.000-06:00

Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary

B.A. Dominican University, River Forest, IL, May 2001

Major: Philosophy Cumulative GPA: 3.6/4.0

Minor: Pastoral Ministry Major GPA: 3.9 (Cum Laude)

President of Phi Sigma Tau (Philosophy Honor Society)

A.A. College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, IL

Canterbury Christ Church College, England Debate Team

EXPERIENCE Franklin Grove UMC Franklin Grove, IL July 1, 2004 - present

Licensed Local Pastor

Irving Park United Methodist Church, Chicago, IL 2002 - 2004

Student Associate Pastor

*Frequent sermon deliveries, pastoral care/visits, sextant

Community United Methodist Church, Brookfield, IL 1998 - 2002

Liturgist

*Lay leader to annual conference

*Frequent sermon deliveries, Co-creator of liturgy

Youth Pastor Summer 1998 - 2001

*Organized Vacation Bible School curriculum

*Worked with confirmands to organize service trips

VOLUNTEER Kreider Services, Dixon, IL October 2005 - current

*Client Advocate for mentally challenged individuals

*Contribute to policymaking for the Advocacy and Rights Advisory Council

Helping Hand Rehabilitation Center, Countryside, IL February 2002 - 2004

*Client Advocate for mentally challenged individuals

*Contribute to policymaking for the Advocacy and Rights Advisory Council

Thomas Hughes Children Library at HWL, Chicago, IL Summer 2001, 2002

*Volunteered four hours a week assisting children to read

ADDITIONAL Hon. William Young Boston, MA Summer 2003

WORK *Christian ethical advisor

EXPERIENCES

Garrett-Evangelical Library, Evanston, IL October 2001 – May 2002

*Book binder and restorer

Brookfield Financial Plans, Brookfield, IL February 1998 – April 2002

*Created financial planning portfolios

*Checked tax returns

2006-01-04T21:19:00.000-06:00

Advent 2, year A
Isaiah 40:1-11
2 Peter 3:8-15a
Mark 1:1-8
Franklin Grove UMC

There was an interesting editorial in the paper called “Getting a head start on holiday feasting”. In it, the author compares two excellent Turkey dinners- one at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Sterling and one at Franklin Grove United Methodist. Now it would probably be really petty and childish to point out the comparisons- but I'm going to do it anyhow. This little paragraph right here is about Sacred Heart. It says...

“Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Sterling, for one, had an excellent turkey dinner. In this one, you serve yourself, waiting in line as you gather your food a nd then you take a seat at a long table and dig in. Scouts are available to help you carry your tray, if you need assistance.!”

That's nice. And all of this is about us. Now, if we look at Ms. Mills description of the experience of a Franklin Grove United Methodist Turkey Supper, I think we get a little bit of insight into why the season of Advent is such a holy time in the life of the church.
“At the Methodist Church” [they never say, United Methodist in the media] “in Franklin Grove, it's a different story. Their meal is an exact copy of what you might serve at your own Thanksgiving or Christmas feast. There you buy your ticket and get a number. You take a seat in the church and listen to the organist playing a variety of tunes and you wait. Every time you see a girl [that is Ann] come from upstairs [sic.] and walk toward the microphone, a silence envelopes the church. Everyone is waiting to hear their number called.”

You see, its in the waiting that the anticipation builds. It is in the waiting that your blood starts to thump as you look for a sign of it being your turn. Waiting for your number to be called.

“When the deed is done, happy people with the right number head downstairs to the meal. Those less fortunate, take up the babble of conversation again, heads turning now and then to make sure they aren't missing the next numbers.”
Remember last week when Mark warned us, keep awake- stay alert. for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep alert.” Now, it has been 2000 years since Jesus came. We are tired, we are weary, we are losing hope that our number will ever be called. For so many of us, it is simply easier to be alert and excited for the immediate- the turkey, the Christmas packages, the parties, than it is to keep alert and excited for the most important event the Universe has ever seen- the coming of our Lord. Advent is that time in the church year where we are reminded, re-awakened into the awesomeness of the Mystery. Advent is the time of preparation for the coming of our Lord again. It is our break from the 'babble of conversation' to turn our heads, to turn back, to repent toward the Lord to make sure that we aren't missing the numbers.

“One of the Millses' favorite parts of this particular meal is the wait. It's a time to be used for people spotting. You might see someone you used to work with before you retired or someone who used to live by you. You may even have your current neighbor sit down in the pew beside you.”

Now there is a thought. And who is your neighbor? I guess that's a whole 'nother sermon. Let's go on...

“The first thing you do when you sit down is to share your number with the rest of your party and then with anyone you know. “What number are you, Martha?”
“114,” Martha replies.
“I've got 97,” is the answer, which causes Martha to add, “How nice.”
She doesn't mean it though because you'll get to the dinner before her.”

Ah, the classic story of human competition. It is so ingrained in who we are that no wonder Jesus had to spend so much time teaching his disciples, teaching us who want the good seats, the seat of honor, the seat that is not by the kitchen door with the waitress constantly breezing past you, no wonder Jesus had to spend so much time teaching us who argue who is the best disciple, who should be Jesus' favorite, and who should not be invited to the table at all, it is no wonder that Jesus had to tell us over and over again, directly, through parable, and through his actions, that the Kingdom of Heaven is different. In the Kingdom of God, there is no lack so there is no competition. There is only the abundant goodness of God. In fact, the first are last and the last are first. And so if we are Martha, we can truly share in the better part when Ms. Mills here says, I got a ticket, #97, I am coming to the Gospel feast, we can say, 'how nice.' In fact, we can say Amen and Alleluia! Amen?

I'm going to skip down past the embarrassing part about the raffle to the next paragraph.

“When the blessed event occurs” [her words, not mine] “When the blessed event occurs and your number is called” [if that is not the first line to a hymn it ought to be,] “...you move down the stairs and are shown to a table. Before you sit down, you get to select your pie --- sometimes there's cake, but that's rare.

Then, seated at a large table with your group and several others, you're treated to a family-style Thanksgiving meal. Friendly people take care of your food whims, handing you coleslaw, potatoes, gravy, dressing/stuffing, turkey, bread and cranberries. You get something to drink, too, ranging from coffee to water and some parts in between.” [I am not sure what that means.]

“You can sit there and eat until the cows come home, but it won't take that long to fill up. Then you have to waddle back up the stairs and out the door. They don't have a nap room, [maybe something to bring up with the Trustees] so you'll need to head home for that.

The Methodists serve this tasty treat every year the Thursday before Thanksgiving. I always think of it as a practice run. If you don't find something to like about it, you'd better consider a hot dog on the real day.”

Now lets pause there, “you'd better consider a hot dog on the real day”. What might that mean to us theologically? What if we think of this life as a practice run and if “you don't find something to like about it, you'd better consider a hot dog on the real day?” You've heard me relate Dorothy Day's conversion experience a dozen times by now. Why did she become a Christian? She says simply, “because I wanted life, and I wanted life abundantly.” That is the tragedy of this Godless age. We see so many of our friend and families and neighbors and dare I say church members and yes, even our own selves at times who are merely going through the motions until they die. So much of the world is in a funk, a funk caused by having a God shaped hole in our hearts- a hole that we try and fill with sex, and alcohol, and television, and shopping, and fancy gadgetry, and unhealthy relationships, and excessive eating, and politics, and any number of other things that may or may not be good in themselves but we pervert in order to fill that God shaped hole. Meanwhile, we are so busy trying to pursue our desires- trying so hard and never catching up- that we miss the beauty of what we are given. But listen! Listen to a voice crying out in the wilderness, a voice of hope, a voice of freedom that is coming o yes I know, a voice that says, Prepare Ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. A voice that says repent, or more literally, turn around. Turn away from all of those things that sap your life, that get in the way of you having life and having it abundantly and instead turn toward God. Mark starts his Gospel out with this simple message. “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” “The one who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit”. The one who won't just fill that God shaped hole in your heart but overfill it- fill it so that you have so much life, so much love, so much light that you'll have no choice but to share it with everyone you meet, you won't be able to help but to share the good news. Look, we don't have to be clothed in camel's hair and eat locusts and wild honey to be prophets in the dessert. Sisters and brothers, look around. The desert is all around us. There are plenty of people who we come across every single day in our lives that in the world's funk and missing out- missing out on the abundant. Sisters and brothers, look around. There are no other prophets but you and me.

Back to Ms. Mills.

“There'd only be one reason I'd tell you not to try this – I wanted to find a parking space right near the church for once and if you don't go there to eat, I might just find one next year. But if you really want a delight, I suppose I can walk. Sigh.”

Oh, if that were our problem. Oh if the parking lot were so full that we needed to fill the lawn next store with cars or have our teens valet park. But that is really only a problem one day a year, the Thursday before Thanksgiving. And why is that? How does the word get out that we have turkey better than Mom's and pie, Oh do we have pie with the flakiest of flaky crust and the pumpkins dark orange but not burnt- but the word does not get out that we have the bread of life? The next morning, no matter how much they stuffed themselves they were hungry again. The next morning, no matter how much they drank of “the coffee to water and some parts in between” they were thirsty again. And yet here we have the spiritual bread of life of which you shall eat, and never be in want again. Here we bathe in the living water, the well from which we drink and are never thirsty again and yet there are plenty of parking spots. On that Thursday, I even think that there were people sitting in this front pew.

The answer is simple. We, the message bearers, the ones called “to be found at peace, without spot or blemish and with patience in the Lord of our salvation” we get distracted. We have the competing messages of the Great I Am and the great hype. And all to often, just because of the sheer quantity of it, we fall for the great hype. The great hype is Satan's tool. It is the way in which we are convinced that the immediate is better than the eternal. It is the way in which we are convinced not only that driving a certain car will make us successful but that being temporally successful is a worthy goal. The great hype is what tells us that we are not good enough, that we need to consume xyz to be worthy of love, that we need to look like so and so to have worth, that we need to focus on achievement even at the expense of our relationships with our families, with ourselves and with God. The great hype promises the abundant life, but leaves us wanting more. It promises us freedom, but enslaves us to itself. It promises us vitality, but leaves us too tired to make it out of the house on Sunday morning. That is the great hype that doesn't last. “The grass withers, the flower fades.” The promises are left unfulfilled and life is empty of meaning.
But. Sisters and brothers. There is another promise. Amen? That is the promise of the Great I Am. That is the promise that we are waiting to be filled. That is the check written by our God that will not bounce. The glory of the Lord shall be revealed and it shall be all the sweeter because of the waiting. That is what it means to be an Advent Christian. To be able to sing out with no uncertainty that freedom, o freedom is coming, o yes I know, o yes I know. That is the hope that we are awaiting to be born in Bethlehem- not just some cute little baby but the savior of us all, the one come to make us new, our deliverer, the one who can give sight to the blind and calm the storm with his hand, the one who is none less than God Godsself. The blind will see, the deaf will hear, the dead will live again.
The lame will leap, the dumb will speak the praises of the Lamb. The Lord of all creation, the ruler of all the nations. Heaven's perfect lamb. The Great I Am! That is who we are waiting for this Advent season, did you know?

So, this Advent season, lets swear against a hot dog sort of life and go straight to the feast. Amen? This Advent season, lets put aside the distractions of the world and focus on our Lord Amen? This Advent season, lets make it a point to invite everyone to the Gospel feast. Amen? Amen.

athanasiusjosiah.com

2005-12-13T00:32:00.000-06:00

New pictures at athanasiusjosiah.com

Pray unceasingly?

2005-12-13T00:28:00.000-06:00

So what can it possibly mean to pray unceasingly?
I have shared with this congregation before that one way that I used to try and condition myself to pray unceasingly was every time I saw an ad on the El or a billboard or a newspaper ad or even a license plate holder that said Wolfe Ford etc., I would offer up a quick, Hi God, kind of prayer. I got good at it. Of course, this worked much better in Chicago than it does here, as there were many more ads and it generally works better when you are alone than when you are having a conversation with someone. Nonetheless, I can't tell you how awesome of a spiritual discipline that was, so I would encourage it. However, as frequent as advertisements of all sorts are, does that really qualify as 'unceasingly'. Unceasing, nonstop, without end, constantly. This, it would seem, is impossible, right. What kind of cruel trick is it to demand the impossible from us? If this is the kind of responsibility that is being laid upon our shoulders, why are we so darn excited over the coming of the Christ child anyhow?
As we studied this passage in our Prayer Warriors group, we came across the idea that prayer is generally seen as either a monologue or a dialog. In other words, many of us think of prayer as a type of meditation- a spiritual way of talking to oneself. Or prayers where you offer up your sins and don't really expect a booming voice that says, “you are forgiven,” but have the assurance that it was heard. Monologue is probably the most common type of prayer. Others think of prayer as a conversation with God – a dialog. We expect that prayer ought go something like this... We ask God a question and God answers. “God, what should I do?” and we look for signs of what to do. “God, I need healing for...” and we look for signs of God's healing. Most of us don't expect a verbal response from God, but we look for signs. In our culture, we call people who talk to God Christians. People who talk to God a lot we call saints. People who hear God talking to them we call schizophrenic. So true dialog is rare in our context.
I looked to Rev. John Wesley's notes on the New Testament to see if I could gain some insight into how much prayer, monologue or dialog, that we had to really engage in in order to consider ourselves to be praying unceasingly. I mean, come on, surely we don't need to be offering up prayers while were sitting back and listening to music or operating heavy machinery or sleeping do we?
Well, Wesley cuts us no slack. First, he reminds us of the context that this command comes in. Paul says, rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. This makes it even harder, because it limits the type of pray that we are to do unceasingly. I am a big fan of the beautiful lamentations we read throughout Scripture. Also, I find the very idea that God encourages us, pleads with us, to go to Godsself, straight to the big cheese of the universe no need for a middle man but to the creator of all with our requests and petitions- I find this idea to be one of the most awesome concepts that we believe as Christians. Yet, these petitions don't seem to count toward our praying unceasingly quota. The text tells us to give prayers of rejoicing unceasingly. To have, as Wesley puts it, “uninterrupted happiness in God.” He goes on to say that praying unceasingly is the “fruit of always rejoicing in the Lord.” And in turn, giving thanks for everything is the fruit of both the rejoicing and praying. Giving thanks is the fruit, not a command to give thanks, but a reward of giving thanks. How odd. You do something and your reward is that you get to say thanks to the party that you did something for. Odd man mister Wesley is. But before we dismiss this as some queer passing fancy that he cranked out one morning let me tell you that all of what makes Wesleyan theology unique, the driving theological point that makes us distinctive as a people called United Methodists, lies on what comes after. In giving thanks for everything, we practice “Christian perfection.” And that is our Wesleyan take on humanity. We are not totally depraved beings. We are not absolved from responsibility with the attitude that if God wants us to be good, its up to God that we are good. No, we hold that, through the grace of God it is each of our responsibilities to be not only good, but perfect, as our Father in heaven is perfect. And what is this perfection? Giving thanks always. Wesley tells us, “further than this we cannot go; and we need not stop short of it.” Sisters and brothers, you and I are capable of perfection, in this life, and it is somehow tied up in this idea of praying unceasingly. This idea of giving thanks, unceasingly. Wesley tells us that we can compare prayers to breathing- the breath of our spiritual life. “He that lives cannot possibly cease breathing.” Unceasing prayer is not a goal that we are working toward. It is the very life-line, the very oxygen of our spiritual lives and if we don't do it, we are simply dead.
These words from our founder laid down so heavily upon me last Tuesday night as I explored them and prayed over them. I was blessed, or maybe more accurately, I was cursed with the confidence that these words were God's truth. That Christian life depended on praying unceasingly and anything short is just pretending, just going through the motions. Well, I have to tell you, I am not in constant dialog or even monologue with God. Sisters and brothers, I can now tell you what despair over one's soul is really like.
So, I continued working on the text. I continued praying over the text. Let me tell you, sisters and brothers, we do not call the life of Jesus Christ good news for nothing. Let me tell you about another assurance that I had this week. An assurance that completely changed everything that I thought I knew about salvation, everything that I thought I knew about God, everything that I thought that I had learned in seminary, and many things that I had preached in this very pulpit. The humbling realization that I came to is that my conception of God was too small and my conception of prayer was too narrow. Let me back up spell and tell you that Ann and I have had a rough couple of weeks on several fronts. But we have been going through each challenge and each sorrow together. This is what relationship is about. A relationship is not about endless chatter, though a deep relationship has constant communication. A relationship is not constant back-scratching- that is, a healthy relationship does not depend exclusively on a 'you do this and then I'll do that' sort of transactions. So, why did I think that God wanted to hear constant chatter from our lips? Why did I think that the basis of our relationship with God is quid pro quo transactions? “God, I offer you praise, you bless me with your peace. Deal? Deal.”
Sisters and brothers, prayer is relationship with God. Prayer is not just talking to God or even talking with God. Prayer is being in an ever thankful relationship with God. Praying unceasingly, is throwing your lot totally in with God. It is marrying God, sharing a mortgage with God so to speak. Making what is good for God, good for you. Making what is disdained by God, disdained by you. Seeing the world, seeing your very life- not as something independent from God, but coexisting through God- that is unceasing prayer. That is true relationship with God. That is being born of the Spirit. That is Christian perfection. Amen?
You know, I got to be honest here. I never really liked the 'holiday season' much. I always saw a disconnect between the gifts given to rich children and the astonishing lack of our nation's and world's poor- all in the name of celebrating the birth of a lowly child in a manger. I am not a big fan of the hoaky songs that every single top 40 artist whips up to market for the holidays. And there is nothing like obnoxious drivers in overcrowded parking lots to sap your enthusiasm for Christmas. But, what if I truly prayed unceasingly? What if I truly saw the world through the eyes Christ and heard my sisters and brothers through the ears of God? What might I discover then? In this season of Advent, this season of preparation, this season of repentance and evaluation of our relationship to God- lets take stock in what we see and hear. A friend sent me an e-mail that invited me to think back to the sights and sounds of the holiday. To use the sights and sounds of today as sort of a litmus test of how we see the birth of a baby in a manger 2000 years ago. Think with me...
When you listened to the news do you see chaos and strife, or do you see sheep without a shepherd? When you went out to do your shopping did you see only hordes of people in the stores, or did you notice the worried expressions on some of their faces--worried because they are facing this Christmas without employment or without enough money and they don't know how they are going to make ends meet. Did this move you to compassion in the way that God is moved at each of our trials?
What did you hear this Christmas?
Did you hear only the blast of music and carols, or did you hear the silent sighs of the lonely and the bereaved who may be dreading Christmas because it accentuates their loneliness? What did you do to alleviate some of the world's loneliness? And in the midst of the sounds of honking horns and people arguing over parking places, did you hear faint sounds of laughter coming from church missions projects because you furnished food and toys for families and children and helped to rebuild a church in Gulf Port?
You see, so often what you see and what you hear is not dependent upon the event but upon your relationship with God. If you did in fact hear the cry from the lonely, the laughter of poor children, if you saw the sheep without a shepherd, then, and only then, might you have noticed the events that took place in Bethlehem that night. If you lacked that spiritual seeing and hearing then you probably would have been with the 99% who were present but who saw or heard nothing out of the ordinary.
One hymn, Come Thou Long Expected Jesus, puts it best: “No ear may hear his coming, but in this world of sin. Where meek souls shall receive him still, the dear Christ enters in”.
Sisters and brothers, this Advent season and beyond, let us accept nothing short of perfection from ourselves. Let us pray unceasingly, prayers of thanksgiving. Sisters and brothers, as we commune with one another and our Lord this evening, let us be of a mind to have a perfect communion. A perfect merging of God's will and our own. As we take the body of Christ, let it transform us so that we can be the eyes and ears of Christ for the world. Amen? Amen.

Be Prepared!

2005-11-08T22:03:00.000-06:00

25th Sunday after Pentecost
November 6, 2005

Scripture Lessons
Hebrew Scripture Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25
Epistle Reading 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
Gospel: Matthew 25:1-13

This is a text about being prepared. Do we have any boy scouts here? Join me in the Scout's Pledge...
On my honor I will do my best

To do my duty to God and my country

and to obey the Scout Law;

To help other people at all times;

To keep myself physically strong,

mentally awake, and morally straight.

And what is the Scout motto? Be prepared. This morning, we are going to look at what it might mean to be prepared for the Kingdom of God. What will be required of us when we wake up to see the bridegroom ready to start the feast? As we dig through the Scriptures, we find at least 3 themes. We need to be prepared by accepting Christ, by laying down a firm foundation, by being prepared in prayer.
If we want to be at the Wedding Feast of the bridegroom, we have to first get on the guest list. We have all been given the invitation. You may remember from four weeks ago when Jesus said, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a King who threw a banquet and ultimately invited everyone. Or our first talk on grace, the Prevenient Grace, that is nothing more than an invitation- God wooing us since the dawn of creation. But to get on the guest-list, you have to say 'Yes'. To turn in the R.S.V.P. A.S.A.P. The unfortunate and uncomfortable reality, the one that we are embarrassed to talk about, is that accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior is a requirement, a prerequisite, to getting on the guest list of the heavenly banquet. Be prepared by accepting Jesus Christ.
But simply being on the guest list is not enough. In this allegory, we are told ‘Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom.” Now lets stop right there. I think that it is safe to assume that all of the bridesmaids at the wedding are on the guest list for the banquet. But as we read on, we see that only half of them make it through the gates. The tradition has always held that the bridesmaids represent the church. And so, this allegory is a tragedy. Think of a wedding, any wedding that you may have participated in. When I have think weddings that I have been a part of, and I think of the rest of the wedding party, and then I think of how I would feel if half of my friends couldn't go to the reception- it saddens me. And so, even for those who are prepared, who are invited in to the heavenly banquet, there will always be a tinge of sadness and regret. Why didn't I remind my friends to go get some oil? Why didn't I do more to make sure that they had what they needed? Could I have given them a ride to the lamp shop? Could I have made the oil more accessible to all? At the end of the day though, it is up to each of us to be prepared. “Oh nobody else, will walk it for us; we have to walk it by ourselves.”
We need to be prepared by laying down a solid foundation. We read before about the wise and the foolish. We read how the wise man built his house on the rock and the foolish man built his on the sand. To get at what we mean by being prepared with a firm foundation let us look at the real story of Rosa Parks. I have heard repeated many times this week the lies that my teacher told me. The story of Rosa Parks usually goes something like this. Once upon a time, their was an African-American woman in the south who sat down in the front of a bus. Then a white man came along and asked for her seat. Well, she was tired and didn't want to move to the back of the bus so she decided to say, “no” and this started the Civil Rights Movement.
This is the way the story usually goes. You get the image of a regular old lady who one day just snaps at the injustice around her and says, “no”. The real story, as told by Ms. Parks herself, is that she had been actively involved in the civil-rights movement for quite some time before this historic day. In fact, she was the secretary of the Montgomery branch of the NAACP. Parks said, "People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.” Ms. Parks did not come out of nowhere. She was shaped in a community- 2 communities to be more precise. The first was the American South, where from the day she was born she was told that she was inferior, that she had to walk to her nearly condemned school while the white kids took their new bus to their new school. She was told that she was inferior when absolutely everything in her society was given a label of white and black. Most of us believe what we are told over a lifetime- and that is a powerful reason why segregation lasted so long. But she was also a part of another community. She was brought up in strength in the civil rights movement. Through this other community she was putting into practice what she had read all along in the Scriptures- that she was a child of God and therefore equal to all other children of God. It was this community building her up that gave her the foundation needed to stand up against that bus driver. Alone, she would have crumbled. But with her foundation, she recalls that she felt like she had a warm quilt of strength at the moment when she felt called to make history.
If we are going to be prepared for the kingdom of heaven, we need to ensure that we have a solid foundation. A foundation that only comes from being in the community that we call the church. It is only by allowing ourselves to be shaped into the body of Christ that we are able to be prepared. That is why communion is so important for us. It is the table that we gather around that builds us up in community. That allows us to commune with Jesus Christ and with one another. Be prepared by making a firm foundation.
Be prepared to pray. Being prepared to pray means that in any circumstances, a prayer is ready on your lips. And the only way that you can do that is if it is such an ingrained habit that you can't help but pray.
“Mary Lou Retton catapulted to international fame at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, becoming the first American [to] ever win the Gold Medal in the All-Around in women's gymnastics. When asked about the secret of her success, Mary Lou said, "To be a complete gymnast, someone should be able to sneak up [might I add, like a thief in the night] and drag you out at midnight [maybe like the bridegroom], push you out on some strange floor -- and you should be able to do your entire routine sound asleep in your pajamas. That's the secret. It's got to be a natural reaction."”
Because of the countless hours spent in the gym practicing, gymnastics became as natural to Mary Lou as breathing. So this morning we ask ourselves, does praising God come naturally to you? The opportunity for practice is now. Practice now so that you will be ready to spend eternity praising Him. Through prayer and song, each day is another day to perfect your praise. (Turning Point Daily Devotional, 10-19-05)
We hear the same idea being illustrated as an explanation of why Japanese school children generally have a higher level of math skills than their American counterparts. Parents expect that their 8 year old children will not just know their multiplication tables, but ought to be able to tell you what 8 times 7 is when awoken from a deep sleep. Pray needs to be an immediate reaction to everything- that which comes before all else- worry, action, anger whatever. Prayer must come first. Matthew makes it clear in his telling of Jesus' parable that all of the bridesmaids were asleep. Elsewhere, we read that the bridegroom, that is Jesus, will come like a thief in the night. There are some who interpret the term gregoreo, keep alert, in the sense that we should constantly be on the lookout for the parousia, the end of the world and the coming of Christ. This is not the message that we see here. The idea is not that we need to be second guessing the time of the second coming, because scriptures say that that is the work of false prophets. Instead, we are to be in a state of constant readiness. We are not meant to have panicky last-minute anxiety, but the assurance of doing the appropriate thing at all times. I think back to school and those times where I waited until the night before to cram in everything that I thought would be on the test. And I compare the stress of those times to the other ones where I simply kept up with studying over the course of the semester. In the former, life was hell. I certainly did not enjoy the material and dreaded the test even more. But when I was prepared, I was able to soak in what I was learning, enjoy the growth, and when the test came, I enjoyed taking it in order to demonstrate what I had learned. This is the difference alluded to in this text. The bridesmaids see the bridegroom coming and some run off for last second preparations and others are prepared and greet him. It is as simple as that. Which path are you going to choose? Might I suggest being prepared by accepting Christ, establishing the foundation that can only come through community, and by being prepared in prayer. Amen?

The Amazing Prevenient Grace

2005-10-17T15:26:00.000-05:00

The following text is a combination of a talk that I gave at a spiritual retreat (Walk to Emmaus) and then a sermon the following day (10-16-05) at Franklin Grove UMC.

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.

Amazing Grace. What is grace? The word grace comes from the Greek word charis, which means 'gift'. And hence the first word in this classic text. Amazing. What is so amazing about grace? Well, it just defies common sense. This is amazing because, if you think about, we are being offered a relationship with God. Little ol us, great big God. This is amazing. It is amazing that God has asked us into the Kingdom. In fact, God created us, with the hope that we would be in God's kingdom through God's grace. Grace is amazing because it is unearnable. It is a free gift given to us by a generous God. That is amazing because few of us, unless we are truly partaking in Christian charity give gifts freely. I'll be honest- I generally give nicer gifts to my brother than I do my sister because my sister generally gives nicer gifts to me than my brother. But God's grace- grace that climaxes in the gift of son Jesus Christ.

As I was typing my notes for this, I found something interesting. Unearnable is not even in the dictionary, let alone MS Word's spell check. Why? Because unearnable is not even in the vocabulary of the world. What do you mean unearnable? I earned everything that I have we can imagine ourselves saying. I then decided to do a Google search of the word 'unearnable'. There is no better way to get a pulse on the culture than to do a Google search. Try this at home. I only glanced at the summaries of the first 50 hits, but every single one of them linked to someone talking about God’s Grace. I think that is why some of us have a hard time getting our heads around what unearnable grace might mean. This must be why Jesus had to use such stark images in his parables and why Paul had to go to exhausting lengths at telling us about faith over works, and why the church has had to have so many painful corrections throughout the years. We simply cannot get our minds around unearnable. But think about it. What could we possibly offer to God? God the almighty, the one who created everything out of nothing. The alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, the big cheese over all. What could we possibly offer? Well, those who have been in a healthy relationship may know the answer. Love. God created us, God fashioned us in God’s image, and God desires one thing from us. Our love. Love that is forced, love that is manipulated like a giant puppet master is not love at all. So God gave us each wills. God gave each of us free choice. God gave us the opportunity to accept and return God’s love and like any partner in a healthy relationship, God gives us the ability to reject it. To go our own way. Alone. And look to the extremes which God went to in order to offer us the opportunity to enter into relationship.

The way that it is put in the old standard liturgy for communion, "Hear the Good News: Christ died for us while we were yet sinners. This proves God's love toward us. In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven." Now if that is not a sweet sound, I don't know what is. God calls us. God gives us the ability to answer the call. God gives us the means to sustain a healthy and thriving relationship with God. This is what grace is all about. Over the next two days, you will be hearing about this grace. More importantly, I pray that you are awakened to this grace in the fullness that God intends. The first part of this grace, God calling us, theologians call Prevenient Grace. The second part, where God gives us the ability to say yes to the call, is called Justifying Grace. And the gifts to sustain the relationship is called Sanctifying Grace. We will be hearing more about Justifying and Sanctifying Grace later. But I have the honor of sharing the good news about Prevenient Grace. Write this down please. Prevenient Grace is grace that comes before. In other words, there is a gap between humanity and God. For shorthand we call this gap, this falleness from right relationship with God, sin. And the only way we can overcome this gap- the only way we can conquer sin, the only way is through God's grace. Grace is a pre-condition. Grace must happen before the relationship can go on. It is prevenient.

God loves us enough to seek us out.

“I once was lost, but now I am found.”

How was I found? Because God sought me out, that's how. God wooed me. God began courting me from before I was even born. You know, I got a some help from a colleague for this message. She offered suggestions about how I could take theological mumbo-jumbo and make it real through example. So she suggested that I think about how I might have wooed my wife Ann and then compare that to how God woos us. Well the thick headed, slow thinking fool that I can sometimes be thought, well, thats not going to work. I never wooed Ann, we just sort of happened. About 8 years ago, the summer after I went AWOL from the Navy, we started hanging out. We had common friends and it seemed like we always happened to end up at the same places. And then at the end of the summer I said something like, will you go out with me? And Ann said, we already go out all the time- where did you have in mind? No, I mean will you go out with me? She said, well sure. This was amazing. And it didn't take long for me to think, that was a pretty good idea on my part. And then at the end of the year when I was arrested for going AWOL and after a month of being in the brig was finally given visiting rights- Ann brought me homemade spinach calzones. Let me tell you, there is nothing in this world that tastes better than a spinach calzone with a flaky crust and a sweet tomato sauce, and roasted garlic and mushrooms, made with love for a Vegetarian living on bland bread and mushy peas in the brig. Now it was right about this time in my thoughts, as I was preparing my notes, that it occurred to me what I had been missing in the facts of the events. Ann wooed me. I had been wooed and didn't even know it. Here I thought that that I was going along just fine, not having a care in the world and things were happening by my great impulsive decisions and instead, Ann had been wooing me all the time. She had her sites set on me for reasons that only she knows and she wooed me. It was no accident that we were our mutual friends called us both. Nope. Ann had said, on occasion, let's call Karl and see if he will come out. She used other people to help in her wooing me. She waited patiently for me to come to the idea that I should ask her if we could deepen our relationship. And it took an unfortunate incident- something that I was certain no good could out of, for Ann to have the opportunity to demonstrate her love in the shape of a homemade calzone. And it only took me about eight years to figure this out.

This is a little like the love behind prevenient grace. God calls us. God puts us in situations where, if we but open our eyes, we can see God right before us. God uses other people to invite us into relationship, to be Jesus for us. God draws us in close, with the fruits of God's love. And here is the part to write really big on your paper. God empowers us. God empowers through the work of the Holy Spirit.

Now, there are two symbols for the Holy Spirit that are used in the Holy Scriptures. The first is that of a dove. The dove has always been a symbol of freedom and of peace. Therefore, it makes sense that the Holy Spirit, the agent of the only true and lasting freedom and the source of the only true and lasting freedom be depicted as a dove. But there is another description of the Holy Spirit that is just as prevelant, but not mentioned as often in our prayers and liturgies. And that is fire. We read in the book of Acts of how the Holy Spirit descended upon the first disciples like tongues of flame. And this is the image that we cannot lose. This is the image that we cannot ignore. Nikos Kazinakis put it like this... “The Spirit is fire...(that) clamps its talons int the very crown of saints, martyrs, and great strugglers, reducing them to ashes...Wake the fire! That is (our) duty. This is how we collaborate with God.”

Think about fire for a second. That is what the Holy Spirit is like. Think about the recent fires in California. The Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit is somewhat like this. Like a powerful force changing the entire forest as well as the individual trees. Think about a raging prairie fire as it uncontrollably spreads with amazing quickness and completeness. Its awesome isn't it. I think that this is why we hesitate to use fire in our prayers and liturgies. It is too awesome to think about. It is out of our control. There are no four words that we can't bear to hear more than 'out of our control.' There is nothing that fire touches that it doesn't transform. Hear where I am getting? There is nothing that the Holy Spirit touches that it doesn't transform. There is nothing that God's grace touches that it doesn't transform. And that is why it was hard for many of us to come this weekend isn't it. Although I didn't recognize and couldn't articulate it until after my weekend, I was a hesitant to come. I had my excuses about work that needed to be done and whatnot. But the reality is I was afraid of the fire that I sensed that I would encounter. Most of us don't really want our lives changed. We want our lives to stay just as they are. To stay right here in our oblivious comfort thank you very much rather than becoming martyrs, or worse yet, saints. We want to keep the blinders on to be shielded from the power of the flame, the intense light of God's Amazing grace.

But there comes a time sisters and you two brothers when a strange stirring comes creeping into our hearts. A desire, a longing for life, and for life abundantly. If someone has felt this stirring say Amen. Wesley called it prevenient grace. The Grace that comes in and changes who we are from the very core of our being on out. Once we allow this grace to come in, God uses it to make us, to fashion us, to mold us into perfect vessals for Christ's love. Once we allow this grace to come in, our blinders are blown of.

“I was blind, but now I see.” Amen?

This prevenient grace causes our priorities to be reshaped. We see the full humanity in our fellow sisters and brothers and we see the imago dei, the image of God in each of them and in ourselves. We look for the grace that is contained in moments of crisis, moments of tragedy, earthquakes, floods, and personal losses. Events that would have broken us before, are now causes for renewed strength. When we allow God's prevenient grace to reshape us, we are beginning a road where our desires change. Where we offer ourselves in grateful service, not out of obligation or duty, but because we recognize that the more we give, the more we truly receive, Amen? We continue down a path were it is no longer a burden to answer God's call, but our one and only desire.

The scriptures describe it like this.

“And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the house where they were sitting and there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were filled with the Holy Ghost.” Amen?

Sisters and brothers, and I daresay I need to be preaching to myself- but hear this – the time is fast approaching when we need to say yes completely and fully to Jesus Christ. The time is fast approaching when we need to yell out to God set me on fire. I am so tired of compromising. I am so tired of lukewarm living. The time is fast approaching when we need to fish or cut bait. If you feel like you aren't there and you need to pray on it- pray on it. But do not use prayer as an excuse for procrastination. The real beauty of this time set aside in our normal week is that the normal cares and distractions of the world are set aside. So use this time to the fullest. As you continue on this journey, this road to Emmaus, use it as a time of listening and a time of responding to what you hear when you do listen. Use it a time to open yourself to the possibility of leaving an unfulfilled you behind and going out as a new that has life and has it abundantly.

Sermon 10-9

2005-10-09T05:05:00.000-05:00

Philippians 4:1-9 & Matthew 21:1

As this week's events unfolded, I found myself returning to a prayer that the Trappist monk Thomas Merton offered after the dropping of the first atomic bomb.

“Lord, mercifully hear this prayer which rises to you from the tumult and desperation of a world in which you seem to have forgotten, in which your name is not invoked in love, your laws derided, your presence ignored”

As we are still coordinating our responses to the two hurricanes that came from the Gulf Coast, we hear more horrific news this week. On Wednesday, almost 2000 people were buried in mud from landslides caused by excessive rain in Guadalajara. There were so many people buried so deep in the mud that the government is considering not retrieving the bodies and just calling it a mass grave. Yesterday, 18,000 people where killed in an earthquake in Pakistan, with another 40,000 injured. And then you put on top of this family bickerings, that are all the more painful because you feel guilty for worrying about the petty in the midst of such great tragedies. And it seems like so many in our immediate circle of friends are suffering as well. It seems like too much. And then, when your personal dreams and aspirations are thwarted by unforseen circumstances and you feel like you are just spinning your wheels, well, its hard. In fact, one wouldn't sound crazy for saying that it seems like we must have been abandoned by God.

Now this is where the discipline part of the relationship between us and God comes in. These are the times when we really need to blow the dust off of our Bibles, remove it from its special place in our house and bring it to our reading chair, and crack it open. And I believe that it helps if you have a plan going into it. By the nature of my vocation as a minister, my Bible reading plan generally revolves around the weekly common lectionary- the texts determined by an ecumenical council that would be read in the mainline churches.

And what did I read? If you find it helpful to follow along, we will be mostly looking at Philippians 4 starting with verse 4. “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.”

Well, that is not exactly the words that were on my lips, God. And if you will excuse me the contrary spirit, I think I need a little more convincing. Rejoice in the Lord always indeed.
And then, what came next?

5”Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near.”

Now, if I were an organized preacher like Pastor Monica up the road, I would have known months ago that a focus on the theme “God is closer than you think” would go great with the text, “The Lord is near”. But I am not an organized preacher, so my sermons are worked on and prayed on the week before I come before with what God has put on my heart. The Lord is near. Well that just my knocked my socks off.

Hear what Martin Luther King Jr. had to say about this passage.
“Not only is there a God; he is near. He will neither forget nor forsake you. Only be gentle to all, and let God care for you; leave it to him how he is to support and protect you. Has he given you Christ the eternal treasure?... With him is much more than anyone can take from you.... [Y]ou possess in Christ more than is represented in all this world's goods. On this subject the psalmist says (Ps. 55:22): "Cast your burden upon the Lord, and he will sustain you," and Peter (I Pet. 5:7), "Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you." And Christ in the sixth chapter of Matthew points us to the lilies of the field and the birds of the air. The thought of these passages is the same as the Lord is near.

Now follows, [in verse 6] Do not worry about anything.

Take no thought for yourselves. Let God care for you. The one you now acknowledge is able to provide for you.... So let the whole world grasp, and deal unrighteously: you shall have enough. You shall not die of hunger or cold unless someone shall have deprived you of the God who cares for you. But who shall take him from you? How can you lose him unless you yourself let him go? We have a Father and Protector who holds in his hands all things, even those who, with all their possessions, would rob or injure us. Our duty is to rejoice always in God and be gentle toward all.... It should be our anxiety not to be anxious, to rejoice in God alone and to be kind to everyone.

(Source: Martin Luther, Sermons, vol. 6, pp. 93-112. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983.)

Let us take a step back and remember where Paul is when he writes this letter to the Philippians. He was in prison. Not a cushy country club prison like where we can expect Kenneth Lay to end up. No, Paul was in serious Roman prison. That meant that any day could be his last. It was a very real possibility that in the middle of writing this letter, he would be interrupted to be fed to a starving lion. Think about it. What would a 'normal person's' state of mind be in such circumstances? What would yours be? If we skip ahead to verse 11, we see that he is at peace. He tells us, “I have learned to be content with whatever I have. 12I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty.”
I'll be honest, because if church is anything, it is a place of accountability. That would not be my reaction if I were in Paul's shoes. I would be raving about the government, “Can you believe this Caesar who unjustly imprisoned me?” I would be calling on every last friend and acquaintance to get me out of that prison and I would be praying the prayer that I started this sermon with. “God, where are you?” But the fact of the matter is, is that Paul is demonstrating what it means to be a true witness to Christ, or to use the Greek term, he is a martyr, an example who we look at and say, wow, I want the peace that he has. A man who gives us those comforting words, hey, God is closer than you think.

So, lets look for this peace that Paul has. What kind of peace is it? Is it the peace that comes from having all obstacles, trials and tribulations cleared from your path. No, in John 16:33, Jesus says “33 I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!’”. You know, Adolf Hitler said that he wanted peace. And I believe him. His means to peace was to eliminate conflict. He reasoned that if he killed all of the Jews, Gypsys, homosexuals, Catholics, and anyone that didn't like the way he ran things, that there would be peace. No enemies equals peace. And this type of thinking is pervasive in the world today. The definition of peace and freedom that the world holds is to hunt down and destroy your enemies one by one. Jesus the Christ was not crucified because he preached peace and love. The Romans and the temple authorities had nothing against peace and love. He was killed because he exposed that what the world calls peace is just another face of evil.

No, we read of a different peace in the Bible. We read of a peace that is not determined by outside forces. Rather, peace is nothing more or less than being in right relationship with God. Ghandi summarized his ethics like this, “be the change you want to see.” In other words, don't focus on what others need to be doing or not doing. Focus on perfecting your own righteousness. Jesus tells us that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a wedding banquet that we are all invited to. In fact he goes out of his way to say that both good and bad were invited. But there is a dress code. In baptism, we were given a robe of righteousness. And we had best wear it lest we find ourselves speechless before the king and he says to the attendants, “Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” 14For many are called, but few are chosen.’

“Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown,” as Paul puts it, how can we be a part of the few who find peace- The peace that Paul is sharing with the Philippians?

“Stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.”

If your still with me look at verses two and three. “Be of the same mind in the lord.” Be in harmonious community in the lord. “Be one with God, one with other and one in fellowship with all the earth”, as our communion liturgy says. In other words, be church. Help each other as we struggle beside each other in the work of the gospel. And in so doing, our names shall be written in the book of life. We will be at the wedding banquet dressed to the nines.

Well what else? “4Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.”

As we already mentioned, this is hard, but what a burden is lifted when we change our mopiness and exchange it for rejoicing. What a relief when we give our burdens to Jesus and leave nothing but the rejoicing. In case you missed again I say rejoice.

In verse 5, we are reminded that in order to be the change we seek, to be peace, we need to “Let your gentleness be known to everyone.” And somehow connected with that, in the same verse, Paul tells us the “The Lord is near.” If that is not cause for peace, I don't know what is. We are offered such an intimate relationship with the creator of all, the big cheese behind the big bang, that we have no reason to worry about anything. We have been given the gift of prayer and “in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving [we can] let our requests be made known to God.

And here is the promise. Here is the good news sisters and brothers. “7And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Our hearts and minds will be guarded, protected, shielded and we will be at peace. Amen? Part of peace is a purity of mind. Part of peace is is praying unceasingly so that there is room for God and God alone. “ 8Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” In a nutshell “9Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in [the example of Paul], and the God of peace will be with you.” Closer than you think!

This is a tall order. Being peace and having peace are quite counter cultural in a world that depends upon, that thrives upon, and has known no other way of operating except by war. Being peace in the face of natural disasters takes a strong will and faith and reliance on the goodness of God. But here is my last bit of good news. If you get nothing else from this time together here this morning, in fact, if I get nothing else from the time spent in prayer and study and writing and preaching this week it should be this. In fact, there just may be a Bible Bee next week with this as the answer, so you might even want to write this down.

Philippians 4:13. If you know it or have it open in front of you, say it like you mean it with me.

13I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Amen?

June Cross and Flame letter

2005-06-03T02:47:00.000-05:00

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” And so begins our story. This is the narrative that defines who we are, and more importantly, whose we are. Spring is here in full force and with it comes the awesome remembrance of God's continual creation, and “God said, 'it is good.'” And yet we look around and it doesn't seem so good. We seem to be in a state of perpetual war, with the Pentagon hinting that there will not be an end in our lifetime. We see serious threats to our environment, both short-term and long. Evidence of a declining moral base abound with an increasing number of people either saying morality is irrelevant on one side, or using it as a tool of hate and exclusion on the other. And God can say that 'this is good'? For reasons that only God knows, we were given the gift (curse?) of free will. And from the first opportunity in Eden to today, we have used it and abused it, and each step of the way, we make things worse for ourselves.

God also said, “Let there be light”. And God divided the darkness from the light. And here is where our hope is. With our free will, God also gave us reason. We are awakening to the consequences of our sins. We see both the darkness and the light. The deeper we plunge into the darkness, into great need, strong temptation and emotional pain, the more precious that light appears. We begin to realize that God has a better way and come to the point where we depend upon God's wisdom and not our own. We freely choose to put our lives, our communities, and all of creation in God's hands. We begin to see that nature is good, not something to be conquered. We begin to see that our neighbor (whom we have called 'enemy' for so long) is made in God's image. To kill her is nothing less than committing deicide. We begin to recognize that there is truth and that it is based in love. The true Light, which was present before creation, came in human form about 2000 years ago and showed us a way, showed us the truth, showed us life, and life abundantly. And it indeed is good.

As we work through Genesis this Summer, let us embrace it as an opportunity to reclaim our identity as children of light!!!

Faith journey in a nutshell.

2005-06-03T02:44:00.000-05:00

The climactic moment of one’s faith journey is not, as many assume, the point in which an individual accepts Jesus into their lives. Although this point of receiving God’s grace is a powerful sign of God working in us, it ultimately is not the action through which we receive salvation. In the excitement that comes from feeling oneself tugged toward the will of God, we cannot help but feel proud of ourselves for making an important decision. However, when we come to our senses, we realize (hopefully) that “he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.”^¹ In other words, our salvation is linked with the two primary practices of our communion with God and each other-baptism and the Eucharist. The former is our initiation into the body of Christ where we die to ourselves and are born anew into the community, the church. The latter is our regathering, renewal and witness. In neither case is the celebration primarily one of an individual’s relationship with God. The “private enmities [are not] more important [than] the struggle of an entire people.”^² Rather, in the baptismal and eucharistic rites, we are celebrating the presence of God in God’s new community. “The liturgical performance of his flesh…continually produces and reproduces a different city, which is called church or ecclesia.”^³ This ecclesia is “a new inter-ethnic social reality into which the individual is inducted rather than the social reality being the sum of the individuals.”^⁴ In other words, we become saved in our participation in the larger reality of church, not through our own will.

This community of faith that we enter into is the conception of the Father, established and led by Christ, which is provoked by the ever-processing fecundity of the Holy Spirit. It knows no geographical boundaries, has its own economy, judicial proceedings, and even its own grammar. It is a new way of being a people of God that is an expansion of the generous covenant with the chosen people of Israel. We are gathered to simultaneously inaugurate and demonstrate the new creation, the new way of being- i.e. creation redeemed from sin in “an ongoing redemptive relation to God”.^⁵ This positively affects our relationship with those both within the community, as well as the wider world.

Internally, the church gathers to worship God and interpret the movement of the Spirit. We “describe his wonders [thereby giving] Him the fullest glorification possible.”^⁶ When we describe these wonders well, we glorify each of the distinctive roles that the three persons of the trinity perform in the life of creation, for each person should be worshipped. First, the Father should be worshiped as the creator of all things. Then the Son, whom through his life, suffering and death we became intimately related with God. We worship the Son for what he did for us, for what he did, “is inseparable from the Person of Jesus Christ and vice versa.”^⁷ Because there is no individual incident that you can point to and say, “that is where the salvation of humankind occurred,” it is likely that the event required all of Jesus’ offices (i.e. according to Calvin- Prophet, Priest, and King).^⁸ So when we worship well, we draw upon descriptive images that evoke all of the components essential to teaching us how to be the polis of God, reunite the flesh with God, understand the magnitude of Christ’s redeeming the sins of the world etc. We have a natural tendency to praise and pray to the person of Jesus because we can relate, ever so slightly, to his fully human nature. As Jones comments, Jesus Christ is both ‘with us’ and ‘for us’ fully in both his humanity and divinity.^⁹ That is, he is of the same substance as we are and can therefore work on our behalf and he can achieve this work because he is fully divine. So, we worship the Son because we cannot do otherwise. “It is I [Jesus], it is I; it is I who am highest; it is I you love; it is I who delight you; it is I you serve; it is I you long for; it is I you desire; it is I who am your purpose; it is I who am all; it is I that Holy Church preaches and teaches you; it is I who showed myself to you here.”^¹⁰ We may not be certain how we are saved, but it is enough to know that we have been assured that the church is.

And finally, we share Paul’s prayer to the Ephesians that “out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.”^¹¹ We worship the Holy Spirit for guiding us to God. Also, as Gregory of Nazianzus suggests, the Holy Spirit is to be worshiped because we declare that he deifies us in our baptism. And “if he is to be worshiped, surely he is an object of adoration, and, if an object of adoration, he must be God.”^¹² Then, lest we mistakenly essentialize any one of these roles to any one of the persons, thereby ignoring each of their complete natures, we worship the unified Godhead. We offer up prayers to God, ‘not as though we would pull down to ourselves [God], but that, by these remembrances and invocations […] we may commend and unite ourselves Thereunto.”^¹³ That is, the blessing bestowed upon the church is the ability to discern God’s will over and against competing wills in the world.

Through this process of continually appealing to God to grant us the strength and wisdom to receive and utilize God’s will, we learn to better care for the different parts of the body of Christ. The more faithful the church is at practicing praise and prayer, that is, the more it acknowledges the corruption of humanity as compared to the goodness of God and conforms itself to the latter, the greater its blessing. Kathryn Tanner describes this phenomenon as the non-competitive relationship between God and humanity where humanity gains self-actualization and freedom in direct proportion to its dependence upon ‘the fecund provider of all that the creature is in itself.”^¹⁴ We partly receive this blessing through the Eucharist in which we reenact the death, life and return of Jesus Christ, as expressed in ‘the mystery of faith’, so that we develop the theological virtues that enable our re-membering and reenacting of Christ’s works in the way we live our own lives.

Humanity, in the Kingdom of God will become fully actualized human beings, completely decentralizing secular power in favor of a universal congregation (and all of creation with it) aligning in right relation to God. So, Ludwig Feuerbach was correct in noting that ‘every advance in religion is therefore a deeper self-knowledge’ though he was horribly mistaken regarding the direction of the knowledge.^¹⁵ We are a poor reflection of the divine rather than the divine being a hyperbolic reflection of us. Furthermore, it is easier to know God than our own soul because, “he is the ground on which our soul stands”.^¹⁶ As mentioned above, God is immutable and simple whereas humans are fickle and changed from moment to moment.

By now it should be clear that the church, the cross, and the entirety of our reality, is given to us as pure gift. As St. Anselm expressed this truth, “for I cannot seek thee unless thou teach me, or find thee unless thou show me thyself.”^¹⁷ It is a gift freely given by a God who is pure love, who obviously does not expect that we could return the favor, and who does not have any need to give except for the simple fact that it is somehow pleasing to God. But, “he made everything for love; the same love sustains everything, and shall do so forever.”^¹⁸ Furthermore, by accepting this gift, we are not doing God a service at Sunday service. God is complete within the trinity-each component offering and receiving abundant love from the others. Nevertheless, God does take delight in our limited appreciation of God’s continual bestowing of gifts. God revealed to Julian, “see here how I let my side be opened, and my heart be riven in two, and all the blood and water that was within flow out. And this makes me happy, and I want it to make you happy.”^¹⁹ And again, “If you are pleased, I am pleased…if I could suffer more, I would suffer more.”^²⁰ She concludes that “This human example was so powerfully shown, that a man’s heart could be ravished and he could be beside himself with joy at this great friendliness.”^²¹

So, what does this mean for the church? When the church conveys these truths and models 'this great friendliness' well, it stands as a light to the nations, displaying to the world the humble power of a community of believers aligning their wills with God’s. More specifically, the church demonstrates to the world what the future Kingdom of God will look like. It demonstrates in the here and now what creation’s destiny is. That is, it with our process, route and end. The church is a sign of the simultaneous current presence and future realization of the Kingdom of God. It is the indication that the children of God are finally accepting the direction of the Holy Spirit toward the second person of the Trinity. When church is church, we love one another, praise God well, and spread the good news. By this infectious example, we invite others to partake in the fruits of these actions. When we trust in the Lord and demonstrate his radical commandments to love the unlovable and forgive the unforgivable, we demonstrate to the watching world that love does not cause the social order to fall into chaos like we always imagined. Rather, we establish a fellowship of right relation with each other and God, which produces an environment of peace. When we squarely confess those sins (individual and communal), which we would otherwise choose to ignore, we demonstrate that reconciliation and gratifying justice are not the products of coercion, but the outcome of mutual love. By giving itself up to God, the church lays bare the power that obeying the various counter-intuitive commandments demonstrated to us by our Lord has. When we forgive one another, share unselfishly, and hold each other accountable, we create a new environment which is open to the Holy Spirit and reverberates into the secular world. These service oriented ministries that 'bridge and empower' are primarily in the domain of the deacon. That is, deacons create the bridges between the disparate areas of the church so that we truly are a united body, and not isolated hands, heads, and feet. Deacons also create the bridges that allow the church's witness to truly be a witness. This is done by making connections between the church and the world. So that the church does not only model peace, but is actively engaged in its creation in the world. So that the church does not restrict her offering of accountability and forgiveness to her own, but reverberates throughout society.²²

The church is also the storehouse of both our publicly and privately proclaimed knowledge of God.^²³ Therefore, we are given the responsibility to pool our gifts, graces, and knowledge in order to educate one another in the ways of celebrating our faith well. This is the primary function of the elder. When we dedicate the community and the individuals within the community exclusively to the act of praising God, we bear witness to the fount of true happiness that makes even the most cutting-edge consumer product pale in comparison. In other words, we, as church, are God’s agents of change, not out of our own intellect or will, but out of our prayerful obedience. The elder is responsible for ensuring that 'the flock' is nourished, recognizes in their own lives cause for rejoicing, and views the church as a safe place of exploration. Through these preconditions, the elder speaks for the church in word and sacrament, therby empowering the community to praise God well. This is where my “greatest passion intersects with the world's greatest needs”, as the common definitian of calling states. I seem hard wired for theological and philosophical study. More importantly, when it comes time to combine this study with what the Holy Spirit is putting on my heart to share with the congregation, I do so in a way that connects. I am very conscious of being

When we accept people into this community, we baptize them “In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” not because we are tritheists, but because this expression of the Godhead most closely resembles (as far as the tradition has been able to determine up to this point) its distinct complexities.^²⁴ For example, the nature of God is love, which is a relational topic. Yet, God is not dependent upon creation in any way, especially since creation is incapable of mutually fulfilling its end of perfect love. So, God’s love finds its perfect expression within the persons of Godself. Without an internal relationship of God, God could not fully express Godself.

Of course, the church does not live up to her calling. Our ignorance, sloppiness, and even our good intentions not founded in The Word create a fog in which “signals cannot be recognized, and one can no longer distinguish between friend and foe.”^²⁵ Our fallen nature allows for betrayal, lust for power, and fear. As James Cone concluded in his study of Black spirituals, there is a fluidity of time in the work of salvation. There is always a sense of “already but not yet” in the work of God. Any attempt to push things toward “the sweet by and by” while ignoring present reality is not consistent with the redemption that Jesus offered. Likewise, an obsessive focus on the present will only lead to embitterment and despair. So even though it is understandable why the church gets scorned by the world for declaring that the Kingdom of God is here in the midst of tragedy, we remain confident in declaring that “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”^²⁶ The alter of a church is on the east side because “we are seeking Paradise, our old fatherland, which God planted in the East of Eden.” This vision of the true promised land and the hope in the rewards of aligning our will with God’s will is the source of our strength. In defining real possibility, Jones declares, “the act of hoping for that future possibility involves belief that the possibility can be realized, can become actual”.^²⁷ As Martin Luther King preached, “I just want to do God’s will and He’s allowed me to go to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the Promised Land. So I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man.”^²⁸ In an age of corrupt Romans and Barbaric hordes, black plague and ruthless kings, or S.A.R.S. and religiously fanatic quasi-United Methodists with access to the bomb, we can put our trust and confidence that there is a higher power that gives life instead of destruction, engenders love instead of hate, and offers hope in place of fear.

For this reality, we continuously offer up our praise and thanksgiving.^²⁹

Further thoughts on Who Jesus is and What He Did?

All of Christology is an exegesis of Matthew 16:15.^³⁰ Jesus asked his disciples, "But who do you say that I am?" to which Simon Peter answered, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." Therefore, the very question “Who is Jesus and what did he do?” is redundant. Neither ‘Messiah’ nor “Son of the living God” is a job description. They do not describe an accident or property of Jesus. Rather, Jesus Christ’s essence, existence, and ‘purpose’ as the second person in the Trinity are identical.

The latter part of Simon Peter’s confession, that Jesus is the “son of God”, is a designation that appears at lest thirty-nine times in the scriptures, and is verbally affirmed by the first person in the trinity, Christ himself, friends and detractors of Jesus, and even Satan herself. But Jesus is also God. I heard a pastor scandalize his church by exclaiming, “Jesus? That bastard be his own daddy.” It is through this wonderful absurdity that Jesus can accomplish the salvific function of the Messiah. St. Augustine puts it a little more delicately by saying, “God himself remains God; humanity is assumed by God. There results a single person. Here is God, our liberator; here is man, our mediator.”^³¹ Jesus Christ, as the second person in the Trinity, shares the divine attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, eternality and impassibility.^³² But, as the son of the Virgin Mary, he is fully human. The tradition tells us that only that which is assumed can be saved. Likewise, humanity is too fallen to overcome its own fallenness. So, Jesus Christ is the salvation of creation partly because he perfectly united humanity with the Godhead. As Julian of Norwich teaches us, the ‘higher part’ of humanity (our soul-though not detached from the body) has been united with God since creation.^³³ But our ‘lower part’, that is, our sensory part, was not united with the Godhead ‘until’ Jesus Christ.^³⁴ In other words, Jesus Christ demonstrates that God is actually in creation, not just behind it. Just as Adam, God’s firstborn creation lost God’s blessing as a result of disobedience, Jesus Christ regains it through perfect obedience. However, as Kathryn Tanner points out, this is not to imply that God rewards His Son for this perfect obedience. Rather, the obedience is the result of God’s blessing.^³⁵ This is accomplished by conforming the flesh completely to the will of God. When Jesus committed the unique (that’s an understatement!) act of conquering death in his own flesh, he gave us grounding for our own hope of resurrection in the new earth. It is unfortunate that some church leaders would remove this hope through statements such as “I believe in the resurrection of Jesus, but I cannot affirm that his resurrection involved the resurrection of his physical body.”^³⁶ This violates the rules of Christian grammar in the same way as “I believe the Jaberwokky ditried at the gumgum tree” violates the grammar of literature. The syntax implies sense, but the locutions are nonsensical.

When a Christian who speaks well says ‘Messiah’, they are referring to Jesus. However, this meaning is a partial supplanting of a more general Jewish term meaning ‘the anointed one’, which referred to a political ruler who would restore Israel and renew God’s covenant with His chosen people. As Jones notes, “The actual Jesus—as the subject--redefined and reshaped the predicate, ‘Messiah.’”^³⁷ In one sense, Jesus is a messiah of a radically different sort than what the Jewish tradition had anticipated. Rather than overthrowing the competing nation-state, Jesus introduced a new way of being a people that was not founded in violence. On the other hand though, there are important similarities between Christian and Jewish Messianic expectations. In both the Christian and post-Second Temple Judaism, the coming (or return) of the ‘Messiah’ will accompany the creation of God’s kingdom on earth and its accompanying distribution of justice. For Christians, this has happened already, but not yet.

Jesus Christ the Messiah is the Word who told us and showed us the way to be truly human. Colloquially put, he practiced what we preached. By doing so, he demonstrated the unfortunate and inevitable result of living in complete obedience to the Father in the present, fallen world. Namely, death-even death on the cross. But through the conquering of even this, we get a glimpse of the unlimited possibilities of the Kingdom of God. Unfortunately,^³⁸ one component of Christ’s messiahship is that Jesus handed the cross down to us through the establishment of his church as his body. Although, “the ecumenical creeds of the church have not attempted to define how Jesus is savior,”^³⁹ we can agree that his life, work and death “is fundamentally at work with regard to sin and the consequences of sin.”^⁴⁰ We grow in faith, not by creating increasingly specific theories of atonement, but by weaving the tapestry of the components of Christ’s life and death, with our own lives and deaths.

When Paul tells us to pray unceasingly, a fitting mantra for every occasion could be “Thank you Jesus, thank you Jesus, thank you Jesus…”

1 Titus 3:6

2 St. Basil the Great. On the Holy Spirit. tr. David Anderson. (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press; Crestwood, NY. 1980). 115.

3 D. Stephen Long. The Goodness of God: Theology the Church and Social Order. (Brazos Press; Grand Rapids, MI. 2001.) 156.

4 John Howar Yoder. Body Politics. (Herald Press; Scottsdale, PA. 2001. 30.

5 Kathryn Tanner. Jesus, Humanity and the Trinity. (Fortress Press; Minneapolis, 2001). 102.

6 (Basil 86)

7 Jones II-427.

8 Jones II 434.

9 Jones II 435.

10 Julian of Norwich. 78.

11 Ephesians 3:16-17

12 Gregory of Nazianzus. The Theological Orations. 211.

13 Dionysius the Areopagite. The Divine Names. Kessinger Publishing. 83.

14 Tanner 3.

15 Ludwig Feuerbach. The Essence of Christianity. 13

16 Julian of Norwich. Revelations of Divine Love. (London: Penguin Classics, 1998). 133.

17 Anselm of Canterbury. A Scholastic Miscellany: Anselm to Ockham. Ed. Eugene R. Fairweather. (Westminster Press; Phillidelphia, 1956. 72-73.

18 Julian of Norwich. Revelations of Divine Love. (London: Penguin Classics, 1998). 52.

19 Julian of Norwich. 20.

20 Julian of Norwich. 72.

21 Julian of Norwich. 51.

22The South African post-apartaid reconciliation comes to mind.

23 Basil 98.

24 “there is one God the Father, one Only Begotton Son, and one Holy Spirit. We declare each person to be unique, and if we must use numbers, we will not let a stupid arithmetic lead us astray to the idea of many Gods.” Basil 72.

25 Basil 114.

26 Julian of Norwich. 79.

27 Jones. II 692.

28 Martin Luther King, Jr. Sermon. April 3, 1968

29 There is no doubt that any given truth claim offered in this paper is in dire need of clarification and amplification. Fortunately, “the Lord will provide a full answer for any remaining questions, since He gives knowledge to those He has chosen, by the Holy Spirit.” (Basil 118).

30 With its parallels in Mark 8:29, Luke 9:20

31 Augustine. Sermon 293,7. trans. Edmund Hill, Sermons, Part III vol. 8:155 The Works of Saint Augustine, ed. John E. Rotelle, OSA (Brooklyn, NY: New City Press, 1993).

32 Scripturally, these are attested to respectively in (Matt 28:18) “All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth.” (John 16:30) “Now are we sure that Thou knowest all things,” (Matt 28:20),“I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” (John 1:1),“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” and (Heb 13:8), “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever.”

33 Julian of Norwich. Revelations of Divine Love. (London: Penguin Classics, 1998). 132.

34 ‘Until’ is in scare quotes because this point of unification was the beginning of history from which time moves bilaterally from.

35 Kathryn Tanner. Jesus, Humanity and the Trinity. (Fortress Press; Minneapolis, 2001). 87-88.

36 C. Joseph Sprague. Affirmations of a Dissenter. (Nashville; Abingdon, 2002). 42.

37 Jones 388.

38 I say unfortunately out of honesty to my fallen nature. I am confident that as one grows in faith, this so called burden becomes a supreme blessing.

39 Jones II 428.

40 Jones II 427.

On the Trinity

2005-05-25T03:02:00.000-05:00

Ann and I are participating in one of the oldest rituals that there is in human existence- one that goes probably goes back to Adam and Eve. The discussion of what to name the baby. I have a strong preference for two names. The first, for a girl, is Miriam. I think in Miriam, Moses' sister, we get the example of a faithful devotion to God filled with happiness, gratitude, fortitude and singing. Ann finds this to be a beautiful name as well. The name that I would pick for a boy is Athanasius. Ann isn't quite as enthusiastic about that one. My sister has said that if we settle on these names, she hopes for a girl. I admit that Athanasius is not a very common name, and it might take a while to learn how to spell, but his namesake, Athanasius of Alexandria of the fourth century was used by God in a way that few others have been. God used Athanasius to help us to understand the Trinity. Did you get that? Athanasius helps us to understand the true nature of God, he helps us to speak well about God. Some of you still look skeptical. As our call to worship, we read Athanasian Creed. I admit, it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. But if you spend some time with it, you can see the nutshell of our faith. This morning, we are going to look ever so briefly at what this might mean.

This Sunday is Trinity Sunday. It is one of the times during the year where we pause for a moment and ask the big question to God- Who are you anyhow. The response that the faithful get is I am. I am the Father, I am the Son, I am the Holy Spirit. And we ask, which one? I am. I am the Father, I am the Son, I am the Holy Spirit. And this would be as good as a spot as any to end this sermon, because once we get past saying that God is the Father, Son, and Spirit, we start to get into trouble. But I am going to go on anyhow.

The most common criticism of Christianity by Muslims is that we are tritheists. A faithful Muslim would say, “there is but one God, Allah. But these Christians, they worship 3. They worship God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. They baptize their children in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They give their lives to three, not one”. A faithful Christian must respond, “No, we worship but one God, in three personas.”

[Certain Tibetan Buddhist Monks ... chords]

This would have been a big help in the early third century, when Turtullian struggled to find a word to describe the three aspects of the one God.

(3-1) Let's try it together. This side says 1, this side says 3. I think that there is a message about why the church needs diversity in order to get the whole story, but that was a sermon that some of you already suffered through on Wednesday.

3-1. St. Patrick's Day children's sermon. [3 leaves or 1 leaf] What Pat really said though was, we do not even have the language to describe a shamrock accurately, how can we describe God? So maybe I better stop here?

No, lets give it our best anyhow.

The Athanasian creed that we read sets out four rules for speaking well about God.

there is one God
the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God
these three persons of the Trinity are distinct. the Father is not the Son or the Spirit, the Son is not the Father or the Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Father or the Son.
this is the essence of what Christians believe, so you better pray hard about it

To understand the basics of the Trinity is to understand the basics of God. God is excessive. God is overflowing abundance. Right now, on some deserted island, there are tens of thousands of flowers blooming that no-one will ever see. What a waste. No, God is like that. God doesn't do anything half way. We also know that God is love. Not that God has love, but God is love. And it is an excessive love. It is a love that is so excessive and perfect that the only object of this love that can handle it is Godself. God's love pours out from the Father and into the Son, and out from the Son and through the Spirit and from the Spirit and into God and it still spills over into all of creation. This excessive love that we see this in the Trinity shows us something quite amazing about God, if you think about it. Our God is a relational God. Not some mastermind in the sky. Not some cold. unconcerned great principle. No, our God, the God of love, the God of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is relational. And this is good news sisters and brothers. We are direct recipients of God's overflowing love and thank God for that.

God is relational. This is how we can understand how we can have 3-1. Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” Now, in these days of Oprah, we all take it for granted that we are to love ourselves. But lets step back and look at that for a second. When we speak of love, we are usually implying that there is a subject and an object. “I love Ann.” “Ann loves Eggplant Parmesan (and me too, I hope).” There is a person that is doing the loving, and there is someone or something being loved. But Jesus tells us it is perfectly reasonable to love yourself. In fact it is the benchmark for fulfilling our Gospel call to love our neighbors as ourselves. The subject is I, and the object is I. There are not two separate 'I's, but one I that loves and receives the love. So it is with the Trinity.

My identity is relational as well. I am a pastor. I am a husband. I am a friend. I will soon be a father. I am a son. I am me. Each of these entail different roles, different relationships. I say and do things differently in the role of a pastor than I do as a husband. But they draw from the same me. The same character, the same characteristics, are applied to all aspects of my life. So it is, in a sense, with God the Trinity.

There are many other ways that our church Fathers and Mothers have left us to understand the Trinity, and I love to explore, so if you want to talk more about it, give me a call. Seriously. But for now, lets go with this.

“Within the Trinity, there is constant movement, interaction, as the Father gives to the Son, and the Son is constantly returning praise and glory to the Father, and the Father and the Son give to the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit constantly draws everything back to the Father and the Son. There is the Beloved, the Lover, and the Love.” (Willimon)

Next week, we will answer the question. “So what? How does God being a Triune God affect my life in some other way than giving me a headache.” But for this week, I think that it is enough that we pray for increased understanding of God. That we continue to seek to learn more about God, in the same way that we ask a newfound friend questions about their life and who they are so that we can have a deeper relationship with her. God's very nature is based on relationships. So we, as creatures with the image of God in our breasts- we are called to be based in relationships. We are called to give and take, to assert and sacrifice, to be willing to compromise with each other, even if it means not naming your child Athanasius, even if you know that it is the best possible name, to offer ourselves wholly to one another.

God being abundant, effusive, gracious and ridiculously generous in God's outpouring of love calls us to be abundant, effusive, gracious, and ridiculously generous in our outpouring of love. When we reflect on the awesomeness of the nature of God in the Trinity and our relationship with God, our illusions of lack melt away. We are introduced into a different way of seeing our lives. We see abundance. We see that we partake in God's abundance. The world tells us to hide away our talents, our money, and be cautious about who we love. The Trinity tells us that to stop moving through relationships is death. That if you bury your talents, you lose them. If Amen? Amen.

baptized by water and fire

2005-05-17T01:01:00.000-05:00

Art has power. I turn to art almost as much as I turn to theological treatises in order to get my spiritual imagination flowing. But sometimes, this power can lead us astray. Sometimes we can get an image in our mind's eye that is radically different than what the scripture paints. This morning I am thinking specifically about depictions in paintings of the Holy Spirit. Think about pictures you may have seen of the Holy Spirit. For example, the baptism of Jesus. The Father is at the top, old man with a beard, doesn't look like he gets out much, or sometimes God is shown as a ray of light. On the bottom is Jesus, young white man with a beard. In between is the Holy Spirit as a dove, hovering over Jesus, ready to poop God's love on Jesus. This is the image of the Holy Spirit that we have a tendency to grasp on to.

One novelist put it like this... “They paint the Holy Spirit descending upon the Apostles' heads in the form of a dove. For shame!…Where did they find that innocent, edible bird? How can they present that to us as spirit? No, the Spirit is not a dove, it is fire…(that) clamps its talons into the very crown of saints, martyrs, and great strugglers, reducing them to ashes. Abject souls are the ones who take the Holy Spirit for a dove, which they imagine they can kill and eat… Wake the fire! That is (our) duty…(This) is how (we) collaborate with God…Ignite the world, transform it into fire, and render it unto (God, who) will turn it into light.”

This is the image that we see in todays text. The Holy Spirit comes down upon those gathered as tongues of fire. Fire.

Think about fire. In your minds eye, think of a raging, spreading prairie fire. That is what the Holy Spirit is like. {help to visualize it}.

Think about some of the characteristics of fire. First off, there is nothing that it touches that it doesn't change. That it doesn't transform into something other than what it was. For this reason, fire is dangerous. We want our house to remain a collection of wood and nails ordered just so, not a pile of ash. We want our communion sets to be functional, not a mass of metal and glass which is what this became after the 1960 fire here at the church. We want our lives to stay just as they are. To stay right here in our oblivious comfort thank you very much, rather than becoming martyrs, or worse yet, saints.

But there comes a time when a strange stirring comes creeping up in your heart. A desire, a longing for life, and for life abundantly. These first stirrings come straight from God's spirit. Wesley called it 'prevenient grace'. This is the grace that we celebrate in baptism. In The Articles of Religion, John Wesley asserted that, “Baptism is not only a sign of profession and mark of difference whereby Christians are distinguished from others that are not baptized; but it is also a sign of regeneration or the new birth. The baptism of young children is to be retained in the church.” Baptism of an infant powerfully portrays the utter dependence which all of us have on God. It is not about anything that we do. The sacrament is the sign of God’s promise of ongoing grace, offering continual forgiveness and transformation throughout our lives. But we do not receive all of the benefits of baptism at once; this is particularly obvious when infants are baptized. At whatever age it is received, baptism demonstrates our inclusion in the covenant with God and our access to the divine grace that claims, sustains, and saves us.

And then there is a moment when we respond to this Grace. A moment when we stand up and say, “I am so tired of compromising. I am so tired of lukewarm living.” There comes this moment when we let the floodgates wide open and say Lord, set me on fire. Here I am with my heart wide open. Take it, Lord. Take all of it. I have no use for any of it if it is not in your service. It is this ongoing moment of awakening, when we give ourselves wholly and completely to God, that Wesley called Justifying Grace. At this point, when we allow the Holy Spirit to have its way, that we get burned. That we get transformed. Its a pure fire that wipes away our sins clean. We are burned beyond recognition, back to the state of grace in the garden before the fall. We may still be guilty of our sins, but God declares us not guilty. We celebrate God's justifying grace in the service of confirmation.

Unfortunately, what happens if you burn a field of weeds and then abandon it again. The weeds come back. So it is with sin. This is why we are in need of perpetual grace. We need to keep going back to the fire for further refinement. This is called Sanctifying Grace, and we practice it through communion. This is why we practice communion with increasing frequency, because we want to get back, to that state of divinity with Jesus Christ.

It has been 50 days since Easter, both for us and the disciples. The setting we read in Acts is very public. Luke gives a list of 15 distinct language groups. We are told that there are many faithful and we hear from skeptics. This is not an encounter with the divine that happens behind a locked door in a monastery. This is God making Godself present in the midst of community. “Christianity is lived out not in isolation, but in community with other Christians.” The church does not allow private baptisms except in the most extreme situation of imminent death. The congregation needs to be present to “reaffirm its own faith and commitment, to promise to nurture, teach, and support those whose commitments are being affirmed. We need mutual nurturing, by both proclamation and example. We grow in faith, service, and discipleship within a community of love and forgiveness.”

“And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost”

Sisters and Brothers, we are the community that was created in this holy fire. We are the ones who have felt God's call and are responding to it.

{“Nothing but fire kindles fire.” “If you want to set someone on fire, you have to buuurn a little bit yourself.” “A burning heart will soon find for itself a flaming tongue.”}

In a little bit, you will be invited to take on an awesome responsibility and you will need to keep these three principles in mind. We will be accepting one person into Christianity, one person into the United Methodist Church, and one into our local community at FGUMC. You will be asked if you will proclaim the good news and live according to the example of Christ. You will be asked if your will surround the Rueffs with a community of love and forgiveness. You will be asked if you will pray for them. If you do not intend to live up to these commitments, do not say them. Can we effectively do these three things on our own? No. And so we will need help from the fire of the Holy Spirit.

So how is it that we will proclaim the good news. How is it that the word of God spread from these initial 120 people that we read about in Acts to the entire world. How is it that we are expected to spread the word of God in a culture that already gets too much information. That has playstations and ipods and 300 channels on the TV. How can we possibly spread the word in such conditions. I'll tell you how. “Nothing but fire ... kindles fire.” People were on fire...

How can we express our love for this family, to surround them with a community of love and forgiveness. Simple, we need to make ourselves vulnerable. We need to put our pride on the shelf, or better yet send it back to Satan and tell him to keep it. If you are struggling in the faith, share it with someone. If you are sinning in any way, burn it out- don't let it fester. If we are going to be of any use to anyone, we cannot pretend like we are perfect. We need to burn a little ourselves. If you want to set someone on fire, you have to ... burn a little bit yourself.

Finally, how will we pray. We will pray passionately for them to have life and have it abundantly. A burning heart will soon find ... a flaming tongue. If we truly cultivate a love for this family and all of the families in our congregation, we will passionately desire that they have abundant life in Jesus.

We are going to take the offering now. Val and Deb are going to sing, and the rest of us are going to consider the responsibility that we are going to take on. We are going to ask God to reclaim our own lives so that we might be an effective Christian witness. We are going to ask that our hearts be filled with fire. Amen?

May the ushers please come forward.

1st Sunday after Easter

2005-04-03T05:40:00.000-05:00

Palm Sunday sermon

2005-03-19T23:33:00.000-06:00

On the board outside of our church is the message “Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord”. Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord. The message of John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness of Judea. ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’“...Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”
We are one week away from the most important day in the church year. The most important day because it points to the most important day in history- the day which some theologians believe that time itself began. Easter. The day when God chose to redeem God's people. The people of Israel had been awaiting for this day for a long time. A day when the Messiah would loosen their chains of oppression and they would be able to once again live in freedom. And that is what today is about, isn't it. On Palm Sunday, we identify ourselves with the people of Jerusalem on the cusp of our liberation. It might be a little challenging for us. Most of us do not feel oppressed in the same political sense that the Jews did under Roman occupation. But all of us have plenty to be liberated from nonetheless. Amen? Our fears of natural disasters, terrorists, and our rapidly failing economy. The broken relationships that all of us seem to have in our lives. The toils that wear down our bodies. The anguish of watching loved ones slip away. We have plenty to be liberated. Our doubts about our faith, our beliefs, even who we really are and why we are here. O God, why do you tarry so long?

We hunger for liberation from all these things and more so we wave our branches and say “Hosanna in the Highest! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” And this is a good thing. We throw our branches down and allow ourselves to be led by children because we are told that they are closer to God and we must become like them to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. We share in their enthusiasm. We share in their uninhibited shouts of “Hallelujah!” and “Praise Ye the Lord!” because we want to be delivered from our adult complacency. And this is a good thing. Yes, on this Palm Sunday, we can relate with the people of Jerusalem.

But Sisters and Brothers, there is danger ahead. The Kingdom of Heaven is indeed coming near. But are we prepared to repent? A lot will happen between this Sunday and next, between our initial recognition of who Jesus may be and who Jesus actually is. The race is long, but we must run in such a way as to get the prize.

John the Baptist tells us to repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near. The people of Jerusalem were prepared to celebrate as they looked upon the Messiah. But they were not prepared to do the hard work of rooting the deepest evil out from their hearts as they looked upon themselves. As Jesus rode in his donkey, fulfilling the prophecy of the Messiah coming in and kicking butt, the people were all in praise and adoration, ready to ride the wave of victory. We all want to be on the winning side. But when Jesus was sentenced to death, when following him might have meant your own death, enthusiasm waned quickly.

I wonder if our commitment to stand with the losers, the poor, the prisoner, and yes Jesus on the way to die on the cross will be stronger? Sisters and Brothers, there is a hard week ahead. The religious leaders, the people whose whole lives were dedicated to interpreting the word of the God and trying to do God's will. Surely we would have stood up for Jesus. Surely the religious leaders would have recognized the Messiah. But no, history tells a different story. I wonder if we more often than not see the presence of God as a threat, because we know that it will mean great change to what we are comfortable with? I wonder if we are afraid to repent, because it may just let God out of the box and into our hearts? You know what happens when God gets into our hearts, don't you? When God gets into our hearts, God asks us to change. When your asked to change, that means there must have been something wrong with you. Who likes to be told that there is something wrong with them? I don't and I am sure that you don't either. We don't like to be asked to be changed, even by God, because it is so much nicer to be told, I'm O.K. Your O.K. Everything is O.K. Isn't that nice? But we know that that is not the case, I am not O.K. and it is my solemn duty to tell you that you are not O.K. And that hurts yours and mine pride. But there is a reason why pride is the greatest of the deadly sins. Pride is the opposite of love and love is life. We need to squelch that pride. We need to be of “the same mind ... that was in Christ Jesus, ⁶who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, ⁷but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.” We find ourselves in human form like Jesus and Jesus “being found in human form, ⁸humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross.”

Sisters and Brothers, lets not make asses of ourselves, waving our palm branches and singing yeah Jesus and then go home and forget all about it. Instead, let us be vigilint this Holy Week. Amen? If you can't join us here, than I pray to God that you can somewhere else. If you can't get somewhere else, I pray that you spend the week in prayer and fasting, reading each of the four Gospel accounts. If you can't find the hours to do that, I pray that you somehow get right with God. Let's not be Judas' and put our own agenda above God's. Instead, let us empty ourselves, so that we have room for nothing but God's will, Amen? Let's not be Peter’s and deny Christ. Instead, let each of us shout it from the mountain tops. Amen? Our neighbor's should be asking each, what is all that noise coming from. I think its those Methodists. Let's not be Thomas' and give our ear to Satan's whispers of doubt. Instead, let us boldly proclaim even the mysteries of faith. Amen?

The Lord be with you...

Selah! (Whatever that means)

2005-03-16T14:04:00.000-06:00

So far, there are 5 of us going to see Michael W. Smith
w/ Selah & Watermark event, taking place Sunday, April 24, 6 pm
at the Peoria Civic Ctr., 201 S. W. Jefferson St., Peoria,
If you want to join us, call me.

why bother

2005-03-10T23:17:00.000-06:00

i have been spending a fair amount of time this week wondering how Lazarus died the second time- or if he is still around for that matter. i recently reread and rewatched Kazantzakis' 'last temptation of Christ' in which Lazarus is killed by Saul (later known as Paul) for political reasons. I also came across this interesting little piece on the topic by john kavenaugh http://liturgy.slu.edu/5LentA031305/theword_embodied.html

"I wonder how it was when Lazarus died for the second time. Were Mary and Martha there?... Of what did Lazarus eventually die? Was it a recurrence of the original affliction or something unforeseen? Did Mary and Martha, the second time around, think that Jesus could spare Lazarus anew?"

it is a fascinating question, but ultimately, it will not bring life to our church. so, i can't help but wonder why God has put this on my heart as the focus of my thoughts this week. well, i am afraid that it is becoming clearer to me. i think that i had to work through this hypothetical in order to see what was underneath it- namely, this nagging 'why bother?' that continuously lingers. i think that i am missing some of the wonder of the miracles because i am stuck in a 'why bother?' glut. a person was blind 2000 years ago and then they could see. they died sometime later and that was that. lazurus was raised from the dead. but surely he could not have lived much longer, so why bother in the first place?

parallel to this 'why bother?' about Lazarus has been a rather annoying refrain from a cantata that we have been practicing. 'he gladdened each neighborhood- helping wherever he could'. never mind that the first part is biblically wrong (he was chased out of galilee, when he cast legion into the swine the pig owners weren't too happy, and i doubt the money changers were 'gladdened' by his visit). the second part 'helping wherever he could' gets to me. Jesus is God. surely, 'wherever he could' would be a large area. but we only hear about select miracles. for example, Lazarus is the only one raised from the dead.

this, of course, is flawed and unfaithful logic. the 'why bother?' obviously cannot be found in the particular miracle. rather, the particular points to the larger issue, that is, glimpses of God's promise. its not so much that Lazarus himself was raised (though i am sure Lazarus himself thought that that alone was enough), but it is the larger promise that such raising represents. the blind man can now see so that God could show God's BIG plan.

this, of course, is the approach that i am going to take for saturday and sunday's sermons. i am (hopefully) not going to get bogged down in what happened to Lazarus, which Mary is mentioned, the archeology relating to the valley of dry bones. rather, i believe that God has refined these banalaties out of me this week, so that i could focus on the good stuff this weekend. God's promise for salvation, the resurrection of our bodies and souls, the breath of life back into the church.

greedy sermon

2005-02-21T01:53:00.000-06:00

“Well, I've been thinking about how to talk about greed.

Yes, I've been thinking about how to talk about greed...

Greed is a strain of the American dream

Having more than you need is the essential theme

Everybody wanting more than they need to survive

Is a perfect indication, greed has settled inside

Maybe you don't really know just what I mean

Maybe you don't want to know about your and my greed

You may wonder whether you're infected by greed

If you have to ask, then the scriptures you need

Greed is sneaky, and hard to detect in myself

I see it so clearly in everybody else

I can see it you

You can see it me...

I can see it in my neighbor

it really shows up clearly

You, and you and your greed.”

These words by Sweet Honey in the Rock get at the perniciousness of gluttony and greed. It is such a slippery concept. How much is too much. I can go to someone's house and see a 41' T.V. screen with 1300 channels and ask myself, is that really necessary? Isn't that a bit gluttonous. And then when you come to my house and see my 400 gig hard drive and AMD64 processor, you might think to yourself, either he is trying to send someone to the moon with his computer, or he just is a glutton for processing power. We are pretty good at seeing each other's greed, and horrible at seeing our own.

I say pretty good, because I think that it is getting harder and harder to recognize greed in this time and place. We are not programed to recognize it. A Stanford study suggests that we receive more information in 1 day, than someone in the middle ages would have received in their lifetime. And what is this information? Buy, buy, buy. We are creatures of habit. I would argue that we are what we do. My Grandma listened to hymns constantly. I truly believe that over the decades, those hymns shaped her character in a different than if she had listened to Rush Limbaugh or Al Franken all day. Likewise, many of us teach or kids, grandkids, nieces and nephews how to pray. When we see them marveling over a bird, we put in a plug for God's great creation. But again, I believe there is strength in numbers. What you do over time shapes you. Consider these facts, available at the Presbyterian's website...

Hours per year the average American youth spends in school: 900

Hours per year the average American Youth watches TV: 1500
Minutes per week that the average American child ages 2-11 watches TV: 1,197
Minutes per week that parents spend in meaningful conversation with their children: 38.5
Percentage of children ages 5-17 who have a TV in their bedroom: 52
Percentage of children ages 4-6 who, when asked to choose between watching TV or spending time with their fathers, preferred TV: 54

^{Number of TV commercials seen each year by an average child: 30,000}

Number of TV commercials seen by the average American by age 65: 2,000,000
Percent of Americans who believe "most of us buy and consume far more than we need": 82
Number of ads aired for "junk-food" during four hours of Saturday morning cartoons: 202
Percentage of American children ages 6-11 who were seriously overweight in 1963: 4.5
Percentage of American children ages 6-11 who were seriously overweight in 1993: 14

Children spend about 28 hours per week watching television. Over the course of a year, this is twice as much time as they spend in school. ²⁵

CUE: Rise

Rise in per capita consumption in the U.S. since 1970: 62%

CUE: Happy

Share of Americans reporting that they were "very happy" is no greater now

than it was in 1957.

CUE: Black

We consume more and are less happy. We are bound to catch up with this reality sooner or later. Right?

Well? Madison Ave. psychology about the links between consumption and happiness are catching up to what the scriptures have been telling us all along. And it is not good news for us. In the olden days of advertising, if you wanted to sell beer, you would show people having fun while drinking beer. In more recent beer ads, the common theme is a group of guys drinking beer, enter unobtainable beautiful woman, something wacky happens- maybe he says a corny pick up line or maybe he mistakes her suggestive wink as being directed at him instead of someone or something else. In the end, the guy does not get the girl. The guy does not get the girl. Have the experts in the ad industry lost their mind? How does failure, rejection and embarrassment sell product. No, they haven't lost their minds. The discovery that they are playing on is that discontentment and gluttony go hand in hand. The source of gluttony is greed and the source of greed is discontentment. Ironically, not only does having a lot of stuff not make you happier, it makes you even more discontented, more desperate to find your next fix. Which leads you into more consumption and then more discontent, until you become less and less a human being filled with the imago dei, the image of God, and more and more a consumer. We are a nation of haves and have nots and all of us are discontent.

While the wealthiest individuals count their assets in the tens of billions, the lowest classes are falling. Americans’ earnings are more unequal today than they have been any time in the past 60 years. This is evidence of gluttonous behavior

Medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas said of Greed: "it is a sin directly against one's neighbor, since one man cannot over-abound in external riches, without another man lacking them... it is a sin against God, just as all mortal sins, inasmuch as man contemns things eternal for the sake of temporal things." (2, 118, ad 1)

CUE: JAMES

The book of James says, "What causes wars, and what causes fighting among you? Is it not your passions that are at war in your members? You desire and do not have; so you kill. And you covet and cannot obtain; so you fight and wage war. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions (4:1-3)."

CUE: BLACK

Long before Sinai and the giving to Moses of the Law, there was Noah and the seven laws or mishpathim that are presented, one by one, incident by incident, in the first 11 chapters of the book of Genesis. Known as The Seven Laws of Noah, they were the governing principles of Judaism before the Ten Commandments, and sketched in the first parameters of Jewish moral and religious thought.

In order of their biblical occurrence, the first of these seven mishpathim is blasphemy; the second is idolatry; the third, theft; the fourth, murder; the fifth, illicit sex; the sixth false witness or duplicity in adjudication; and the last, the eating of flesh torn from a living beast. Many rabbis came in time to teach that theft was the greatest, because all the others come from it: To commit adultery is to steal another’s partner. To blaspheme is to steal the name of G-d for human purposes. To commit murder is to steal another’s life, etc., etc. And theft comes out of greed.

CUE: GREED

When you live in a capitalist culture, one that holds as a central principle that people are greedy, and if they were to stop, life as we know it may collapse- it is easy to come up here and rant and rave about how far gone we are- how hopelessly mired in the sins of gluttony and greed we are. It is an easy case to make, and I suspect that all of us could make it equally as well in our own ways.

CUE: BLACK

But that is not why we are here this evening. For us, Lent is the time to recant our sins, to look inward, and then to look toward God to see how we might better do God's will. So is it our job to take on the world, to point our fingers in contempt and disgust. If it is, it is only a small part of what we must do. The larger part is to change ourselves.

Can we brazenly face the world and say- enough, I do not want what you are offering? Sadly to say, I do not think that we can. I think that every single one of us here tonight is too enmeshed in our culture to escape. Do we simply give up hope? Do we go home and finish off the Valentine's candy and wash it down with a super-sized chocolate shake?

No, there is hope. It doesn’t come from rejecting the sirens of this world, but from using our finitude to our own advantage. This is what I have been skirting around this whole time. We, as humans, only have so much time. We only have so much time to think certain thoughts, so much time to do certain things, so much time to say certain words, and so much time to spend with one another.

CUE: TIMOTHY SHORT

1 Timothy 6:6-19

Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment;

for we brought nothing into the world, so that it is certain thata we can take nothing out of it;

but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these.

But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.

CUE: p177

If we spend our time in prayer. If we pray unceasingly- that is the only way to cure ourselves from gluttony.

sermon 2-20-05

2005-02-20T08:50:00.000-06:00

This Easter, we will be accepting new members into the church. For the unbaptized, we will be offering the opportunity to be reborn of the spirit- to be fully accepted into the family of God. For those that are not church members, the opportunity to fully become members of this church family.

But, lest I get charged with false advertising, let me begin with a story.

{Tiger story}

I love this story because it takes the sentimentality and certainty out of the conversion experience. When I read the Bible, it is so easy for my to tsk, tsk those whom Jesus chides. Poor, foolish Nicodemus. Here you are in the presence of Christ, he tells you that you need to be born athenos, which in Greek can mean either from above or again, and you silly man are thinking that it means again and that you need to crawl into your Mother's womb. Poor foolish Nicodemus.

When I read the Bible, and I read the text from Genesis that Deb read for us where God says, 'pick up your things and go' and Abram picks up his things and he goes. When I read this, I like to think that is what I would do.

Well those who saw Pastor Cole preach in Lee Center last week know that the most powerful tool in Satan's arsenal is pride. Pride makes us see ourselves through a rose colored haze- making us reinterpret our sins as virtues and the piety of others as foolishness.

When I read the story of the three men and the tiger, I think to myself- What an idiot that third man was! I think that most of you would agree with me. This is why I love the story. It allows us a refreshingly honest glimpse of ourselves as we truly are. On our best days, we are like Nicodemus. But rarely, if ever, are we like Abraham. By our own will, we will always trust in ourselves. We will always go by our own judgment, our own presuppositions, our own volition. Yes we will always trust ourselves, even over God.

But,

“Ye must be born again.”

Our founding father, John Wesley, tells us

If any doctrines within the whole compass of Christianity may be properly termed fundamental, they are doubtless these two, -- the doctrine of justification, and that of the new birth: The former relating to that great work which God does for us, in forgiving our sins; the latter, to the great work which God does in us, in renewing our fallen nature.

http://gbgm-umc.org/umhistory/wesley/sermons/serm-045.stm

Yes, in renewing our fallen nature. In reassessing who we are at the fundamental core of our being. Yes of fully dying and being reborn. In the earliest records of baptism that we have, the candidate for baptism would have never seen one before. So imagine his or her surprise when the priest would literally trip them into a pool, and hold them down until they started to drown. Until they really got the sense that they were about to die.

This is dangerous stuff we are talking about here! Once you go down that road, you may never come back.

But we must go down that road, because there are but two roads, the one that leads to life and the one that leads to death, and we had better choose wisely. We were born to seek life. We receive this life when we are reborn. When we are reborn, we find out who we really are.

“Nicodemus came to Jesus because Nicodemus knew that Jesus knew the answers. However, Nicodemus did not know the questions.” http://www.day1.net/transcript.php?id=225

Nicodemus' questions are all along the lines of 'how could this be?' Jesus knew that the questions that he really wanted answered were, "Who am I? Why was I born? Where do I belong? How can I be at peace with who I am?" These are the kinds of questions which keep one up at night. That make us get out of bed and seek solace somewhere, hopefully in the tent with Jesus. These are the questions that Jesus answers.

Who am I? I am no longer a descendant of Adam, I am no longer fully bound by his sin. Rather, I are given the pure gift of new life through Jesus Christ. I am born from above, born of the wind, born of the spirit. I can't see it, but I can see its effects in our own lives and the lives that we touch. I see the world as it truly, as loved, as so loved by God that God would give God's only begotten son that I should not perish but receive eternal life.

This love is available to all and when we accept this love, an amazing thing happens. We get a piece of that love. We too so love the world that we are willing to give our all. We lose our condemnation of the world, as Jesus did not come to condemn. Where we saw hopeless pain, we now see transformation. Where we saw only our limitations, we now see that we participate in the infinitude of God.

Nikos Kazantzakis preaches that there are three kinds of souls, each with their own prayers.

I am a bow in your hands, Lord, draw me, lest I rot.
Do not overdraw me, Lord. I shall break.
Overdraw me, Lord, and who cares if I break.

(Report to Greco. New York, Touchstone 1975)

This latter is the kind of reckless faith of Father Abraham, the kind of reckless obedience to God's will that our spiritual heir had. This is how people wake up one morning and find themselves in a Leper colony in India, a warehouse in Louisiana, or at the house of a friend who hasn't yet found Jesus.

This latter type of faith is nothing less than the recognition that when we participate in God's plan, we become love itself.

Similar to Nicodemus, we may ask, “How can these things be?” (v. 9). The answer is simple. God loves. Jesus saves. Amen. So be it.

postmodern sermonizing

2005-02-17T10:47:00.000-06:00

q: does the world need another blog?
a: no

q: so, what is the purpose of this one?
a: i have been feeling rather constrained by the traditional sermon format. in any given week, i read a couple hundred pages of theology, biblical critisism, news, and devotions and condense it down to a 15 minute sermon. i fear that the density of this approach causes indigestion to the hearers of the word in the congregation. i hope that this blog can serve as an area where, rather than my role being one who emparts 15 minutes of truth, i can take on the more biblical road of one who is journeying with others as we seek God's will for our community.

q: say again
a: this blog is a log of texts read, sites visited, thoughts thougt, and alleys not pursued in the sermon preparation process.

gluttony

2005-02-17T01:09:00.000-06:00

this wed. is my turn for the rotation for preaching on the seven deadly sins. my sins are gluttony and greed. some initial questions to explore are: if you are going to limit a list of sins to only seven, why the seeming redundancy? is there a significant difference between gluttony and greed? what is the word for myself and the community of franklin grove?

experienced a brilliant sermon by Rev. Cole on pride and envy yesterday. it seemed like a similar pairing. pride leads to envy as greed leads to gluttony. but i wonder if we lose something about the special nature of envy and gluttony when we limit it to simply being an instance that displays the rule. one thing from yesterday's sermon that i intend on reiterating is that all sin leads to death, making the '7 deadly sins' both limited and redundant. however, the major shift from Rev. Cole's approach and mine will be the locus of sin. that is, i find in the Bible record an emphasis on communal sin, or at the very least, a notion that sin permeates well outside the flesh of the individual. in the hebrew law, there is the notion of the ground puking if there is sin in the midst of the people, when something is made unholy, it is contagious. etc. etc.

so, what about eating. is it a sin if the only one it hurts is oneself? how do we know where the line is between sustanence and gluttony?

it is clear pride and greed fit the 'internal emotions' view of sin. but gluttony (and envy), may make us a little more uncomfortable. gluttony has historically been associated primarily with food. eating too much chocolate clearly seems to fall into the 'non-of-your-buisness' category. the only one that is being hurt is themselves. no harm, no foul. so where is the harm in sin if it is not communal?

so, here is the tension

1. sin is not just about the individual
2. sin is about broken relationships, specifically, between humanity and God.
so, if 1 & 2, what is the harm of gluttony?

preachykeen

2005-02-01T22:30:00.000-06:00

hello world.